Imtiaz Ali, the director who redefined romance on the silver screen through his poignant stories in films has refuted claims of which actor is playing the lead role in his next film. It was rumoured that the Tamasha director was collaborating once again with his Jab We Met actor Shahid Kapoor for his next film. However, a media house reported that Shahid had opted out of the film and Rajkummar Rao has stepped in the role. Imtiaz, on the other hand lambasted the media house for spreading rumours in a cryptic statement.

Imtiaz said, “It’s funny to see news about yourself in the media - doing a film with Ranbir, doing a film with Tiger, Shahid walking out of a film - doing a film with Shahid in the first place. I don't look at the rumour mills, but if there's something in them about me then someone tells me. I am sure you guys are smart enough to smell a true report when you see one. And I will say it when I do something, and I am always reminded of this - one of the first English novelists called Henry Fielding had written that newspapers are the biggest hypocrites of the time as the number of incidents differs each day but the number of pages in a newspaper remains the same.”

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The media house had reported that the film is a two-hero project and Shahid has opted out of it and his role was being taken up by Rajkummar but that does not seem to be true as Imtiaz has clearly refuted the claims. He has made it clear that there is no truth to the claims made about the said film. Imtiaz’s last film as director was the Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma starrer Jab Harry Met Sejal which received negative reviews in India but did well overseas.