Nana Patekar was set to reprise his on-screen chemistry with Sunny Deol in Gadar 3, according to filmmaker Anil Sharma, who confirmed the actor had asked him to write a role for him just days before his death. The 75-year-old legend, found unconscious at his Goa home early Thursday morning, passed away from a heart attack. He was preparing to join Sharma’s next two projects — Gadar 3 and Arjun Naga, with the former being the most anticipated of the pair. Sharma said Patekar had expressed excitement about returning to the Gadar universe, where he’d previously lent his voice in Gadar 2 (2023). 'He asked me to write a role for him,' Sharma told PTI. 'We were working on developing his character.' That collaboration never happened. Patekar was also slated to be narrated Arjun Naga, a film Sharma described as one he’d been eager to share with the actor. The news has left the industry reeling. Sharma called Patekar ‘like an elder brother’ and said he was ‘shocked beyond words’. He remembered him as disciplined, deeply prepared, and respectful. A man who questioned scenes only to sharpen them. Patekar’s last screen appearance was in Vishal Bhardwaj’s O'Romeo, earlier this year, where he played a cop opposite Shahid Kapoor and Triptii Dimri. He was also set to appear in Shakti Shalini, the latest entry in the Maddock Horror Comedy Universe. His final public appearance came just four days prior, when he spoke about mortality at an event. Tributes have poured in, from Manisha Koirala to fellow actors across Marathi and Hindi cinema. A Marathi classic, long thought of as his legacy, now is a monument to a career that began in 1978 with Gaman. And yet, the story isn’t over. The script for Gadar 3 remains unfinished. The role, still unnamed, waits. The question now is not whether it will be cast. But what kind of silence it will carry.