While the Big B denies playing the poet-author, Ronit Roy bags the role in a Hollywood film

Amitabh Bachchan and Ronit Roy share the same birthday. Now they have something else in common. They've both been offered the part of Rabindranath Tagore.

However, Big B has denied playing the Bengali author, contrary to reports claiming that he would be part of a biopic written by Javed Akhtar and directed by Ujjawal Chatterjee.

Describing himself as a "third-rate Bollywood actor" unworthy of playing a man so noble, Bachchan said, "I've been getting smses asking if I'm playing Tagore. But I haven't met anyone regarding this."

Apparently, the actor received only an SMS offering him the role. "An SMS is very impersonal, unless I know the person sending it. Tagore is a legendary figure. I wonder whether people would want to see Tagore being enacted in a cinematic reconstruction and that too by an actor from commercial mainstream cinema!"

But Ronit Roy seems to suffer from no such complex. The TV actor who was recently praised for his performance in Udaan, has been offered to play Tagore in a Hollywood production co-starring George Clooney.

After the Udaan screening at Cannes this year, Roy landed himself a meaty role in this Bengali-English biopic produced by Fox-Star and directed by Anita and Nandita Chatterjee. Clooney will play an American hugely influenced by Tagore's writings.

Roy is reluctant to talk about the film. He said, "I'm not allowed to talk about it. But which actor wouldn't be excited at the prospect of playing Tagore?"