After the successful outing with Dev D in 2009, filmmaker Anurag Kashyap and actor Abhay Deol drifted apart due to their differences, with Abhay being vocal about their rift. Now, Anurag talked about the problem, saying Abhay will not be able to face anyone if he narrates his version of truth in public. 

In an interview with Janice Sequeira, the filmmaker-actor was questioned about him being bad at maintaining relationships. There have been murmurs about his rift with actor Pankaj Jha as well.

His response

Talking about it, Anurag said, “I am not bad at maintaining relationships. Abhay, I have not met him since the shooting of Dev D. He didn’t even come for promotions and he has never spoken to me since. If he wants to call me toxic, fine, it’s his side of story".

“The truth can’t be spoken, because if I will speak the truth, he won’t be able to show his face. There is too much truth in there that Abhay will also not have the courage to talk about. And I will not talk about it because it will make him look like s**t,” he added.

He also addressed the stir around replacing Pankaj Jha with Pankaj Tripathi in his popular franchise, Gangs of Wasseypur, without informing him.

Dubbing it as a misunderstanding, Anurag shared that it has been long, and he remembered that Pankaj “had joined the Osho ashram and he was not into acting” at that time.

According to him, Pankaj disappeared, giving his reasons to get Pankaj Tripathi, the director shared, “I was running on a very tight budget, I had to get someone and Pankaj Tripathi was cast at the last minute”.

Anurag said that Pankaj Jha never tried to contact him, and he was not aware that he was upset about getting replaced.

On being called toxic

Often, there are reports where his castmates have called him “problematic” and “toxic”. And Anurag is not fretting about it, as he knows that he “can’t always make people happy”. Instead, he avoids working with people who think he is problematic.

More about the rift

Pankaj Jha in an interview with Digital Commentary had expressed his disappointment in being replaced in Gangs Of Wasseypur without being informed. In a generic statement, he called people in the industry “spineless”. Meanwhile, Abhay in several interviews has called Anurag extremely “toxic”.

On the work front, Anurag recently featured in the Vijay Sethupathi starrer Maharaja, and is now set to share the screen with Gulshan Devaiah in Bad Cop.