Chakravarthy said that he tried to imitate Varma to prepare for the role.[1] The title role was initially planned for Bajpayee, but after the characters clarified for Varma he felt that he needed someone more fluent in Hindi for Bhiku Mhatre;[7] Chakravarthy, a native Telugu speaker, was not sufficiently fluent in Hindi.[7] Bajpayee was unhappy with the decision since he wanted to play the title role, but agreed to remain on the film because no other role was available.[7] He based the character of Bhiku Mhatre on a person from his hometown who was a Jeetendra fan, wore coloured T-shirts and was short-tempered; he took the accent from his cook who was from Kolhapur.[7][18] He also gathered his own costume from 25,000 given to him by the production.[18] When Shukla and Kashyap were discussing authentic-sounding character names, an office boy named Bhiku came in and they decided to use his name for a character.[3] Although the female lead was initially offered to Mahima Chaudhary, but later replaced by Urmila Matondkar, with whom he had worked in Rangeela and Daud.[19] Newcomer Sushant Singh was cast as Mhatre's henchman.[20] Matondkar's costume was designed by Manish Malhotra.[18]