Rakesh Roshan opened up on how he came up with the casting for his 1995 film Karan Arjun.
Rakesh Roshan’s cult film Karan Arjun, starring two of Bollywood’s biggest superstars Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan, is gearing up for a re-release in theatres on November 22, 2024. While fans cannot contain their excitement over this, the film’s director Rakesh Roshan, in a new interview, talked about how he finalized the casting for this iconic movie.
While Kajol romanced Shah Rukh Khan, Mamta Kulkarni played Salman Khan’s leading lady in Karan Arjun.
In a chat with SCREEN, the ‘Krrish’ director opened up on Kajol’s casting and shared, “Shah Rukh Khan had recommended Kajol. I asked her how was it to work with her, and SRK praised her a lot after which I signed her.”
The filmmaker revealed that he had initially planned Karan Arjun with Shah Rukh Khan and Ajay Devgn in leading roles. However, both of them quit the film.
Elaborating on it, Rakesh Roshan shared, “While Ajay can answer as to why he backed out from Karan Arjun, Shah Rukh had left the film as he wanted to play the role that Ajay was playing and vice-versa. They wanted to change their respective images. But I said I was not making this film to change their images. It’s a story that required them to be what they were.”
Following their exit, Rakesh replaced Shah Rukh Khan with Aamir Khan and Ajay Devgn with Salman Khan. However, later Shah Rukh returned back and told the director that he wanted to work with him because Roshan Sr was the first person to sign him as an actor in King Uncle.
Rakesh Roshan recalled, “He (SRK) said, ‘I couldn’t sleep at night, and even though I don’t believe in the story, I will still work with you. I have full conviction.’ Then I told Aamir that I had SRK’s dates from the next month so let me start with him, and Aamir agreed.”
And that’s how Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan ended up being finalized for Karan Arjun.
Further, Rakesh Roshan also shared that when he announced Karan Arjun, two of his distributors backed out from the film because it starred two romantic heroes who had never done action before.
“Nobody believed in this film when I was making it. When it was released, it was the audience who lapped it up,” he told the publication.
Karan Arjun follows the story of Durga’s two sons, Karan (Salman Khan) and Arjun (Salman Khan) who get killed by their evil uncle when they set out to avenge their father’s death. Years later, the two are reincarnated to bring justice.
