Shah Rukh Khan was not the first choice for his much-loved film, Baazigar (1993). Before him, the director duo Abbas-Mustan went to Salman Khan and Anil Kapoor with the film’s story and both of them didn’t want to do it.
In an interview recently, Mustan said, “We contacted Anil Kapoor but he said that this subject (of Baazigar) is risky and I will not do it. So, we contacted Salman, but he was doing Rajshri films back then, all family oriented. Salim sahab (Salman’s father) said that its too early for Salman to do these types of films. We lastly went to SRK, and we both gave the narration.”
He added how the superstar reacted to the script, adding, “Shah Rukh was sitting on the ground while listening the story and we were on the couch. After we finished, he got up, hugged us and said, ‘Kya kahaani hai, mai karta hoon (What an amazing story, I will do it)’.”
Baazigar proved to be a breakthrough role for the superstar, who was essaying the role of an anti-hero for the first time. The film also turned out to be a blockbuster at the box-office.
In the same conversation, Mustan also talked about how Salman’s brother, Arbaaz Khan said no to their film Khiladi (1992), which eventually went to Akshay Kumar. He shared, “When we wrote the film’s story, we firstly went to Salim to talk about it because we wanted to cast Arbaaz Khan in the lead role. He listened to the story with Arbaaz, but felt that the role wouldn’t suit him. Hence, we asked Akshay for the role.”
