Took liberty to up entertainment quotient in 'Azhar': Emraan Hashmi

Mumbai: Actor Emraan Hashmi, who will be seen essaying former cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin's role in "Azhar", says the makers took the liberty to increase the "entertainment quotient" in the biopic.

"Our popular culture is music so you have to take liberty of that. Azharuddin has never sung such songs for sure but we have some lovely songs in this film. For few scenes we took the liberty to privatise it... We took some liberty to increase the entertainment quotient," Emraan told IANS about taking cinematic liberty for the film. 

Emraan, who claims he was a huge fan of Azharuddin, was upset when the former captain of the Indian cricket team was accused of match-fixing in 2000.

"I have been a huge fan of Azhar bhai and I was upset because his name was dragged into match-fixing. I thought it was wrong where people started believing that he took money, but that was wrong because our judicial system has a course and their investigation went on for 12 years after which he was acquitted of all charges. It was all about patience for his fans," Emraan said. 

Directed by Tony D'Souza, "Azhar", which is jointly produced by Balaji Motion Pictures and MSM Motion Pictures, also stars Prachi Desai, Nargis Fakhri, Lara Dutta and Huma Qureshi in pivotal roles and is slated for a worldwide release on May 13, 2016.