Shah Rukh Khan rose to stardom with the 1993 film Baazigar. However, few know that Shah Rukh Khan was not director Abbas-Mastan's first choice to play Ajay Verma's negative role in the film. Before that, the film was offered to Salman Khan. Sridevi was also supposed to play the lead role in the film, but she could not be a part of the film due to her stubbornness.
The interesting casting story of this film was narrated by Abbas-Mastan, the director of the film 'Baazigar', in an interview given to Radio Nasha. He said, we saw talent in Shahrukh. Then people told us not to make this film. No gray character ever moves. But we decided, we will definitely make this film. Our makers said that we have made a sports film. Akshay was cast in it. Now let's take Anil Kapoor in 'Baazigar'. Anil was a big star at that time. We went to Anil Kapoor, we also told him the story of the film.
He further said that at that time the shooting of Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja was going on in Mahalakshmi's studio. After hearing the story, Anil said, Your subject is good, but this story is not suitable for me. I can't justify it. You make it with someone else.
Abbas-Mastan further said that, after Anil, we went to Salman Khan. His father Salim Khan also used to sit and listen to the story. At that time he was doing a family oriented film of Rajshree Productions. After hearing the story, he said, your film will be a hit, but I can't do this film. Now I am family oriented, people will not accept me.
He further said that when Salman too rejected the film, he thought of Shah Rukh Khan. Both of them had seen some of Shahrukh's earlier films. When he reached Shah Rukh, he sat down on the floor to listen to the story and listened to the entire story in one go. As soon as he heard the story, he said, I will do this picture.
Abbas-Mastan said in an interview that Shah Rukh was so excited about the film that he immediately started deciding how he would act in which scenes. In the workshop, Shahrukh showed him each scene in different ways.
Sridevi stubbornly left the film 'Baazigar' During the conversation, Abbas Mastan also shared a funny story about the casting of the female lead. He said that only 17-year-old Kajol was cast for the film. After this he went to Sridevi for another actress. After hearing the story, Sridevi said that she wanted to play the role of two sisters.
Shilpa Shetty played the role of Seema in this film.
That said, Shah Rukh Khan was already playing two types of characters in the film, in such a situation if the heroine also has a double role, the audience will feel that everything is a double-double. We thought that Sridevi should be given the role of Seema, but then we thought that if we show a superstar like Sridevi dying in the first half of the film, the audience might reject the film. With this idea, the role was later given to Shilpa Shetty.
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
