Though the filmmaker managed to find a palatial house with a swimming pool in Panjim, Goa, where the film was shot, the cast remained a problem.
The young boy Smith had cast in a key role had returned to Mumbai. The young girl did not get permission to take off from the school and they were still looking for an older actor to play a key role. The original father had got a plum role in a television series and he wasn't coming back.
"In the three days leading to the film's shooting, we had lost three of the four actors," Smith says with a sigh.
While he could find replacement for the two younger artistes, he still had no clue who would play the older man. "Then Kate Nobel, the film's producer showed me a picture in a newspaper, The Goan Times. It was Nana Patekar, and I said, this is the man who will play the owner of the posh house."
He approached Nana through a friend, director Anurag Kashyap (Black Friday), but the temperamental actor was not inclined to be in the film.
Anurag saw 45 minutes of the footage Smith had shot and he urged Nana to see it.
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