Kya Kehna producer Ramesh Taurani revealed how Salman Khan missed out on doing this Preity Zinta starrer because of Chandrachur Singh.
Preity Zinta’s 2000 film Kya Kehna revolved around the topic of premarital sex and how the society perceives it. The actress was hailed for her moving performance as an unwed teenage mother, and the Kundan Shah directorial is considered to be an important milestone in her filmography.
Besides Preity as Priya, the film also featured Saif Ali Khan and Chandrachur Singh in pivotal roles. While Saif essayed the role of Rahul, Priya’s boyfriend who dumps her after learning after her pregnancy, Chandrachur played the role of Ajay, Priya’s childhood friend who is secretly in love with her.
Recently in a chat with Radio Nasha, Kumar Taurani, the producer of Kya Kehna recalled the hurdles the film faced back then during its making. He shared that the film’s original cast was Mukul Dev and Chandrachur Singh. However, Mukul didn’t show up on the first day of shooting, and so they had to bring in Saif Ali Khan at the last minute for the role of Rahul.
Next, the distributors were not interested in buying the film because it relatively featured smaller stars- Saif Ali Khan and Chandrachur Singh. Since the makers were having a tough time in selling the film, especially after Gulshan Kumar’s assassination, Ramesh Taurani had to take up some bold decisions.
He then asked Chandrachur Singh to drop out of the film so that they can replace him with Salman Khan who was a big star.
Taurani recalled, “I spoke to Chandrachur and I told him that we can’t sell the film. We asked him to drop out of this film so we can sell it. We were in a dire situation and we had never done something like this.”
Chandrachur agreed, and soon after, the producer spoke to Salman Khan, who immediately gave his nod to play the character of Ajay in the film.
Taurani shared, “He (Salman) said I don’t even want to listen to the plot. I will do it just because you have asked me to. But you have to get a letter of consent from Chandrachur. I don’t want to take something that belongs to someone else, something that’s cursed.”
He said that soon after this conversation, the news somehow got leaked in the media, and Chandrachur decided that he won’t back out of Kya Kehna as he felt it would be silly to leave a Tips production. Salman then asked Ramesh Taurani to complete the film with Chandrachur Singh.
Kya Kehna, upon its release, opened to positive reviews, and was lauded for handling a bold subject in a sensitive manner.
