Karan Johar’s Kuch Kuch Hota Hai completes 21 years in October. The filmmaker recently held a premiere of his debut film at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne. During the Q&A session, KJo was asked to share his dream cast for a contemporary remake of KKHH. The director responded — “On my wishlist would be Ranveer Singh as Rahul. He has that mad intensity as Shah Rukh Khan. Alia Bhatt as Anjali. She has the spunk and Janhvi Kapoor as Tina because she has the poise and balance of the part.”

Sharing an anecdote about how he cast the original film, Karan recalled, “I was ecstatic to meet SRK. Kajol and he had promised that they will do my first film. So I remember going to meet him and I had no script whatsoever. I only had a scene in my mind. Which I narrated to him. And he bought into my bullshit. I told him if you like this one scene then I will narrate the entire film to you, which was completely a lie.”

He continued, “Tabu, Urmila, Aishwarya turned me down and Ash was the only one who was polite to call me back. It took months to cast for Rani’s part after Aditya Chopra recommended me her name.”

Karan Johar’s upcoming directorial is Takht. The period drama stars Ranveer Singh, Vicky Kaushal, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Alia Bhatt, Bhumi Pednekar, Janhvi Kapoor and Anil Kapoor. Karan will also direct one of the four short films in Netflix’s Ghost Stories.