He has tickled audiences' funnybone many a time with his comic acts. Now actor Boman Irani is to play the Indian version of Playboy magazine chief Hugh Hefner in upcoming comedy "Fruit And Nut".

Boman plays an old Maharaja, Harry Holkar in the film who not only lives with young and pretty women, like Hefner does in real life, but also claims authority over Mumbai as his princely state that his forefather's have ruled.

"There are different shades to the character but it is some of the funniest characters I have ever played. It's weirdly funny. We are aware that Mumbai never had a maharaja but there is a meaning to it, " Boman said in a statement released here Wednesday.

He has also been shown to have his own dungeon very much like Hefner's Playboy mansion where he celebrates life in style.

Even the initials of Boman's character have been consciously kept the same as Hefner's to attribute a similarity to the flashy billionaire.