Our leading men’s leading ladies are becoming progressively misleading. Sanjay Dutt who turned 53 this month would be romancing the 24-year old Prachi Desai in his new cop film Thanedaar Returns. And to ensure that the age difference doesn’t jar, the script is being modified to justify the gap of 29 years between the hero and heroine.

The last time there was such a yawning gap between the lead pair was when Anil Kapoor played Kareena Kapoor’s husband in Bewafaa. And there the age gap was justified by the fact that Kareena was Anil’s second wife in the film.

But here with no plausible justification for the age difference except for the fact that Prachi was the only viable choice with dates; the makers of the film have decided to rewrite the original script to explain the age difference.

Says a source close to the project, “In the original Tamil film Saamy, Vikram and Trishna who are separated by about 10 years played the lead. Here there’s an age difference of almost 30 years between them.”

Apparently, when the film’s team saw the couple together it was decided that the script should be altered in a way that the hero’s acutely young romantic interest is justified.

Confirming these developments producer Thanedaar Returns producer T.P. Aggarwal said, “Yes, we’ve justified the age difference between Dutt Saab and Prachi in the script. If you see them together they don’t look mismatched in spite of the age-difference.”

Prachi Desai seems unperturbed by the age-difference. Says the actress, “When you see the film you won’t complain. Younger girls getting paired with older guys is nothing new in our cinema. My best pairing when I was doing television was with an older guy and the feedback was stupendous. The audience loves younger girls being paired with the older man. Even in Rock On and Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai, my co-stars Farhan Akhtar and Emraan Hashmi were not my age. And that’s okay. I am playing a character.”