Dharmesh Darshan, the director of Raja Hindustani, shared that Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was his first choice for this Aamir Khan starrer.
Dharmesh Darshan’s Raja Hindustani (1996), starring Aamir Khan and Karisma Kapoor, was a huge success at the box office, and is still cherished by fans for its evergreen music by Nadeem-Shravan. In fact, two of its songs, even made its way into international films.
While ‘Pardesi Pardesi’ was a part of the soundtrack of V For Vendetta, ‘Pucho Zara Pucho’ played in the background in Kate Winslet’s Holy Smoke. People still gush over Aamir Khan and Karisma Kapoor’s sizzling chemistry in this romantic drama. But do you know that Karisma Kapoor was not the first choice to play Aarti/Memsaab in Raja Hindustani?
The film’s director Dharmesh Darshan, in a chat with Bollywood Hungama, revealed that he initially wanted to cast Aishwarya Rai Bachchan alongside Aamir Khan in Raja Hindustani.
“My heart was on her. But she urgently had to go for Miss World. I didn’t want to take any chances as I wanted an actress who could devote her full time to the film and Bollywood. It was her sheer grace that she didn’t hold it in her heart,” the filmmaker shared.
Dharmesh said that this was one of the reasons why Aishwarya agreed to do a cameo for him in Mela (2000) which recently clocked 25 years. He further praised her for agreeing to do it and driving a couple of hours to shoot that scene, considering she had shared screen space with the likes of Shah Rukh, Salman and Aamir Khan.
Further, the filmmaker also revealed that Aishwarya was his first choice for Mela as well before Twinkle Khanna bagged the role of the female lead. He recalled women telling him, “What sir, you gave a cameo to Aishwarya and such a big role to Twinkle Khanna.
Mela, unlike Raja Hindustani, upon its release, turned out to be a box office dud. Over the years, Twinkle has often joked about her performance in this film.
