Danish Pandor isn't letting the Dhurandhar momentum cool off. The actor, who played Pakistani gangster Uzair Baloch in Aditya Dhar's franchise this year, has signed on for Aamir Khan and Ashutosh Gowariker's Lalkaara, according to Filmfare and The Times of India. He's set to play one of the friends of Aamir's character, though neither report has the specifics of who exactly he's playing.

The bigger shift in the casting news is who's no longer around. Vikrant Massey, once attached to the project, is reportedly not part of it anymore. Neither outlet explains why he exited, so treat that as an open question for now. What's clear is that the ensemble around Aamir is still being built out, and Pandor's arrival is being read as a sign of how seriously the makers are treating this cast.

A Lagaan reunion, twenty-five years later

Lalkaara reunites Aamir and Gowariker for the first time since Lagaan, and that alone is doing a lot of the hype here. The film is a period sports drama centred on the 1952 Test series between India and Pakistan, the first the two nations played against each other after Partition. Aamir plays Lala Amarnath, independent India's first Test captain, a real historical figure whose story sits at the centre of the film. Sidhant Gupta is also part of the cast, per The Times of India.

The physical ask on this one is steep. Aamir's character is meant to be around 25, a big gap from where the actor actually is in life, and he's reportedly begun a serious weight-loss programme to close that distance. The cast, Pandor included, is said to be training in cricket to look convincing on the field, not just recite lines about it.

The screenplay comes from Piyush Gupta, who wrote Dangal and Chhichhore, working alongside Neeraj Singh of Nil Battey Sannata. That's a writing team with a track record in exactly this kind of true-story, high-stakes-sport terrain, so the pedigree checks out on paper.

For Pandor, the jump is stark. Going from a breakout villain turn to a Gowariker-Aamir reunion in the space of months is not the usual career arc, and if Lalkaara lands anywhere near where Lagaan did, this could be the role that resets how the industry sees him.

No floors date has been confirmed yet, and both reports suggest more casting announcements are coming. Whether Massey's exit gets an official word from the makers, or stays an unconfirmed footnote, is worth watching too.