Director Rahul Dholakia shared the story behind Mahira Khan’s casting as Shah Rukh Khan’s heroine in Raees.
Mahira Khan made her Hindi film debut with Rahul Dholakia’s action film Raees (2017) headlined by Shah Rukh Khan. The Pakistani actress’ chemistry with King Khan in the film was widely appreciated by the audience. But do you know that there’s an interesting story behind this much-talked about casting?
Recently when ‘Raees’ director Rahul Dholakia appeared as a guest on casting director Mukesh Chhabra’s YouTube channel, he spilled the beans about why he selected Mahira Khan to play Shah Rukh Khan‘s leading lady in his film.
Rahul revealed that he had considered actresses like Deepika Padukone, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Anushka Sharma, Sonam Kapoor and Katrina Kaif for the role of Aasiya Kazi. However, things didn’t work out with them due to various reasons.
The director shared, “We wanted an actor to play an 1980s Muslim girl. So, our first priority was to have an actress with good Hindi speaking skills, and if she had a little bit of an Urdu twang, even better. We also wanted our heroine to have an innocence. And Shah Rukh was 50, so we wanted a heroine who is at least 30-something.”
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He continued, “Now, there are very few actresses (in India), who are in their 30s with good Hindi and an innocence. There was Deepika, Kareena, and Anushka. We had these three or four heroines who met the criteria. But now, the problem with them was that they are too expensive and the role is too small for them. Then we went through a complete list which included Sonam and Katrina. At the end of the day, we realised this wasn’t working for us. They were not really fitting the role. Shah Rukh Khan cannot romance an Alia Bhatt!”
Talking about how the female lead’s casting finally fell in place, Dholakia shared that it was his mother and Gauri Khan’s mother who suggested Mahira Khan’s name for Raees. Co-incidentally, the ‘Humsafar’ actress was in the city for some promotional work, and she ended up bagging the role after giving an audition.
“Then Gauri [Khan]’s mom had seen Mahira and my mother had seen her in some Pakistani television show. They both said: ‘Yeh ladki achi hai (This girl is good).’ Honey Trehan was casting for us. I called him up and asked if he knew Mahira. He said, ‘She is here in Mumbai for some promotional work.’ He then said, ‘I will bring her tomorrow, you can audition her for the role.’ We then auditioned her at the Excel office. After the audition, I declared, ‘I have found my Aasiya,” the director said in his interview.
Raees featured Shah Rukh Khan as a bootlegger who sets out to become a leader, but ends up falling in a political trap. The film also starred Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub in pivotal roles.
