Kartik Aaryan to romance Sreeleela in Anurag Basu’s musical; gets a shoutout from Karan Johar: ‘All on point’

After extensive conjecture regarding who will co-star with Kartik Aaryan in director Anurag Basu’s upcoming musical, the producers unveiled the first look video of the film on Saturday. The video presents Sreeleela, making her Bollywood debut alongside the Shehzada star. In addition to revealing Sreeleela as the female lead, the creators also showcased Kartik’s appearance in the film.

The video features Kartik sporting a rough appearance, complete with long hair and a beard. He is attired in a rockstar persona while playing the guitar and singing “Tu Meri Zindagi Hai” before a big crowd. The upcoming snippets showcase the passionate love story between Kartik and Sreeleela. A brief look reveals her biking with Kartik while embracing him. Later clips show them relaxing outside a snug cabin, with Kartik strumming the guitar and Sreeleela paying close attention. Another view reveals them enjoying a heartfelt moment on top of a trailer.

Sreeleela was last spotted in the dance sequence “Kissik” from Allu Arjun’s hit Pushpa 2: The Rule. Similarly to his earlier release, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 in 2024, Kartik Aaryan is poised to dominate this year’s Diwali, having revealed that this film’s debut will align with the festive occasion. Filmmaker Karan Johar used Instagram to send a shoutout to Kartik. He posted the video and captioned it, “The magic of love tales… the fervor, the affection, and the melodies! SuPer energy! Everything is spot on!!! Eager.

Earlier, it was rumoured that the makers were considering Triptii Dimri as the female lead in the film. However, due to Triptii’s ‘overexposed’ and ‘overtly sexualised’ image after her appearance in Ranbir Kapoor’s Animal, they decided to drop her from the movie. But, Anurag Basu rubbished such claims and told “Image was not the reason. I am the last person to judge an actor on the basis of the other characters they have played on screen. Aashiqui was not even the story anymore… I don’t know the source of these stories which came out. Most important thing is dates. Triptii is shooting for a film with Vishal Bhardwaj, and my film goes on floors this month too. She is still my best friend, I really like her as an actress. You should ask her too what happened.”