New girl to play Jessica Lal

The original plan of casting a big star in the central role of Jessica Lal, the assassinated model from Delhi, in No One Killed Jessica has fallen through.
With Vidya Balan playing Jessica’s sister Sabrina Lal and Rani Mukerji cast as an investigative journalist on the lines of Barkha Dutt, the chances of finding an established female actor to play the relatively smaller part of Jessica has faded.
For lack of choice, the director and his producers UTV have decided to cast a complete newcomer as Jessica.
Says a source, “Once Rani and Vidya were cast, established actresses who were approached guessed they’d have very little to do especially as the character gets murdered in the early part of the story. Now they’ve no choice but to cast a newcomer.”
Director Rajkumar Gupta confirms these developments. “We’re looking at casting a new girl as Jessica. We feel the impact of the crime on the audiences’ mind would be far greater if the actress playing Jessica is an unknown face. We’re looking at a theatre actor for Jessica’s role and for the other smaller roles.”
Adds Siddharth Roy Kapoor of UTV, “Apart from Rani Mukerji and Vidya Balan, all the other characters in the film form the supporting cast. They are good actors but not known faces.”