IANS

Mumbai, Nov 22: Last year's hit film 'Vivah' has made a major difference to its lead actors Shahid Kapur and Amrita Rao. If individually they are now in a position to pick and choose, as a team they're even more in demand.

After delivering a hit with their first film 'Ishq Vishk', they got an unexpected bonanza with 'Vivah'. And if director Sooraj Barjatya had his way he would probably get them back together in his next film. In fact, the director once said he never felt the absence of his favourite hero Salman Khan once Shahid faced the camera.

As for Amrita, the minute Barjatya saw her in 'Ishq Vishk' he decided no other heroine could play his simple yet elegant and utterly Indian small town heroine in 'Vivah'.

Naturally, post-Vivah, filmmakers are keen to sign the Shahid-Amrita pair, one of them being David Dhawan whose new film for UTV is his first non-comic outing since 'Swarg' at the beginning of his prolific career.

After initial consultations, however, Shahid and Dhawan stayed away from each other. A probable reason could be that the actors would like to remain special and exclusive for Barjatya.

Siddharth, the Teulgu actor of 'Rang De Basanti' fame, has therefore replaced Shahid in Dhawan's film.

Confirming her presence in Dhawan's film, Amrita said, "It's not a typical David Dhawan film at all. From what I could make out of the script, it's far removed from the image that he has."

As for Siddharth, Amrita says she hasn't met him as yet. "But I'm sure we'll make an interesting and convincing pair," the actress said.

Not too many leading men would seem to suit the petite and tender-looking Amrita. In fact, in her next release "My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves", Amrita is teamed with newcomer Nikhil Diwedi.