Why did Sanjay Leela Bhansali cast Sonakshi Sinha instead of Deepika Padukone in Heera Mandi?
Heera Mandi has been Sanjay Leela Bhansali's dream project for 12 years now which is why it is a bit difficult to understand why he would cast a mediocre actor like Sonakshi Sinha as the lead. The audience expected the lead actress to be one of SLB's favourites like Deepika Padukone or Aishwarya Rai but to everyone's surprise, he chose Sonakshi Sinha who has been missing in action for some time now. Heera Mandi is a 7 episodes project. The initial plan was that Vibhu Puri will direct all the episodes of the series but Netflix wanted Bhansali to direct at least the first episode himself. So, the first episode will be directed by the Sanjay Leela Bhansali and the following episodes will be directed by Vibu Puri but supervised by SLB. Huma Qureshi will also be seen in the series and the rest of cast is yet to be announced.