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The 1993 crime thriller Baazigar, helmed by Abbas–Mustan, was a huge milestone in Shah Rukh Khan’s career. The actor played an anti-hero in the movie, which was a major risk for him. But the film could have starred Deepak Tijori in place of Shah Rukh. In a new interview, Tijori revealed that the idea of remaking A Kiss Before Dying into Baazigar originally came to him, and he had gone to the filmmaker duo Abbas-Mustan with it. He said that he regrets not doing the film, but decided that backing out was the correct thing to do.
“I had watched A Kiss Before Dying and I had narrated the whole script to Abbas-Mustan. They loved it. At that time I was doing good for myself and I said I want to play this bad guy because A Kiss Before Dying was about Matt Dillon being a bad guy,” Tijori said in an interview with Bollywood Hungama. After Abbas-Mustan, Tijori made film producer Pahlaj Nihalani watch A Kiss Before Dying. He also liked it and immediately agreed to make the Hindi adaptation. “He called me and said, ‘banaate hain ye film (let’s make this film)’ and asked about the lead actress. I said we will have Pooja doing the double role, she will play both sisters. He had his own directors, but I said, ‘no I have Abbas-Mustan on board.” In Baazigar, Shilpa Shetty and Kajol played the role of sisters, who fall in love with Shah Rukh’s Ajay.
Pahlaj Nihalani met Abbas-Mustan, but there was a twist. “After their meeting, Pahlaj ji called me and said, ‘Teri kahani mein twist hai (There’s a twist in your story),” Tijori recalled.
When Tijori went to Nihalani’s office, he was told that Abbas-Mustan have approached Shah Rukh about the film and they have different producers on board. He was shocked. So, Nihalani offered to make the film with him, with the aim to finish it before Abbas-Mustan. “It was a very lucrative offer for an actor that I have a bigger producer, only the directors will be different,” Tijori shared. However, he was not convinced to do things this way.
Then the actor went to his mentor in the industry and told him, “Merko maloom hai ye role rocket hai (I know this is a great role).” So, his mentor advised him to meet with Abbas-Mustan and try hashing things out first. Meanwhile, Tijori, who was friends with Shah Rukh at the time, called him and told him not to say yes to Abbas Mustan’s offer yet. “When I met Abbas-Mustan, they told me, ‘Deepak ji galti ho gayi hai (We have made a mistake) We will compensate. We will do something together in the future.” I told them are you sure about it since I have an offer from Pahlad Nihalani. They said, ‘Haan haan Deepak ji karte hain na, hum logg word dete hain (Sure, we give you our word),” Tijori narrated.
They further convinced Tijori by telling him that he is already successful, but their career was at stake. “Though it pinched me that this was the film which I wanted to do badly, I did not want to play dirty,” the actor said, adding, “But at that time, I didn’t know industry mein ye ek common word hota hai ki hum aage chal kar compensate karenge, vo kabhi compensate hota nahi hai (It’s common in the industry for such promises to be made. They’re never upheld).”
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