Genelia replaces Jiah in Yahoo

Bollywood director Ken Ghosh insists that Jiah
Khan’s ouster from his upcoming film had nothing to do with her acting
capabilities. He says he roped in Genelia D’Souza as the heroine’s character
changed over time.Ken rubbishes rumours that he made the change overnight as he
didn’t like the rushes of whatever had been shot of Jiah so far. And he stresses
that he would love to work with the spunky actress in future projects. “Jiah is
a very good actress and has her own space where she performs really well. She
being replaced has nothing to do with her capabilities as an actress. She is
very good at what she does and I’m 100 per cent sure that I will rope her in
again when an opportunity comes,” said Ken.So how did Genelia come into the
picture? “Honestly speaking, it was the sea change in the female protagonist’s
character that drove me to make the change.

Earlier the character was a lot hotter and Jiah
fitted the bill. Now she’s turned much cuter and Genelia turned out to be the
perfect choice,” Ken explained.”At the end of the day Jiah and Genelia are quite
different, whether in terms of looks or attitude. There is a different kind of
energy expected from the newly-written character and I’m getting that from
Genelia,” he added.Produced by UTV Motion Pictures, the film also stars Shahid
Kapur. The director said they were yet to zero in on a good title, but added
that it would not be called Yahoo as reported in a section of the media.Ken, who
has earlier made films like Ishq Vishk and Fida, says he didn’t want to talk
earlier about Genelia replacing Jiah as it could have led to
misunderstandings.

“I didn’t comment anything on record earlier since whatever I would have
said, that would have been misconstrued. There were speculations of all kinds
doing the rounds and there was no point clarifying or justifying my stand,” he
said.After shooting for a substantial portion of the film, Jiah was obviously
disturbed at being replaced.”Of course it was quite painful for her but then we
had to look at the final results. Frankly, it didn’t make sense for Jiah too to
enact this new character and I’m sure she too agrees on this,” Ken said.What has
been the impact of the replacement on the film’s budget? “We should be able to
ascertain the cost once the film is ready because shooting is just one part of
it.

“However, in terms of shooting days, Genelia coming in would only impact
around 9-10 days of shooting. These too won’t be directly proportional to the
cost incurred in our earlier days of shooting. Overall, we have just another
28-29 days of shooting left; so it’s not much of a problem after all,” Ken said.