Aishwarya Rai said she never had a boyfriend, refused Aamir Khan ad, says Prahlad Kakkar: ‘How do I go before a man, behave like a woman?

Explaining why he chose Aamir Khan, Kakkar said, “I saw Aamir’s film Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988) and he was perfect for the part. He already had a character—a clean, good guy with no evil intent—and audiences had accepted him that way. In a 30–60 second commercial, you can’t establish a character from scratch. With Aamir, I had a ready-made persona to work with.”

Kakkar revealed that he had the option of choosing between Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan for the role, but Aamir was ultimately the more convincing choice.

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“I love Shah Rukh, but he wasn’t the character. He would have had to play the character. Aamir already had the legacy; people would naturally assume this was an extension of his Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak persona,” he explained.

Aamir Khan, who debuted in 1988, is senior to Shah Rukh Khan, whose Bollywood debut came in 1992. By the time of the Pepsi ad, Aamir was already a rising star—while Aishwarya, with her four-second appearance and no prior acting or ad experience, stunned everyone. Overnight, she became “the Pepsi girl.”

Speaking about choosing her, Kakkar said, “I had to work on her because she was completely raw. She hadn’t done anything before.”

Watch the iconic Pepsi ad here:

When asked whether working with a newcomer was frustrating, he replied, “It wasn’t. As a director, you can’t get frustrated. It is your job.”

He went on to describe what made her performance memorable: “Because she was raw, she had this innocence. She walks into the frame, stands provocatively, and says, ‘Hi, I am Sanju… Got another Pepsi?’ Her body language actually challenged Aamir to say no—and that wasn’t articulated, it just happened.”

The director recalled how long it took to find her: “We took four months to find Aishwarya. Once I found her, I had to work on her. It took me about 18 takes.”

Being her first-ever on-camera experience, Aishwarya had moments of self-doubt while shooting.

“In the middle of the shoot she turned to me and said, ‘I can’t do it. This isn’t happening.’ I took her aside and tried to help her think in a certain way. She said, ‘I can’t because I haven’t experienced it. I have never had a boyfriend. How do I go before a man and behave like a woman?’” Kakkar recalled.

Despite her uncertainty, Kakkar was fully confident in his choice.

“She had all the attributes of ‘arrestingness’ that I needed for those four seconds. I wanted people to look at her and say ‘Wow!’—but it also had to go beyond that. It had to provoke Aamir’s character to say, ‘I know the shop is closed, but I need to do something.’” The rest is history – Aishwarya caught the attention of India with her appearance and remains a top star till today.