Hrithik Roshan said dad Rakesh Roshan went bankrupt after Shah Rukh Khan film flopped: ‘He was in tears’

‘Take Hrithik in the film’

For Hrithik, Koyla also holds a very different memory. Before becoming an actor, he worked as an assistant director on the film. In the recently released documentary The Roshans, Rakesh recalled that his father-in-law, actor Om Prakash, had insisted that Hrithik be given a role on the set. “My father-in-law Om Prakash ji wanted me to take him in the film. I said, ‘Daddy, yeh kaha kaam karega, bolta hi nahi hai kuch’ (How will he work? He barely speaks). He said, ‘Le le, tere sath chup chap rehta hai mere se baat karta hai’ (Take him, he doesn’t speak to you but me).”

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Rakesh remembered being stunned when Hrithik eventually gave his first shot. “When he gave his first shot, I was stunned absolutely,” he said, while Rajesh Roshan added, “Tab tak aagaya tha uske andar…” (He had it in him by then).

Even to launch Hrithik, Rakesh had to mortgage his cars and house. Kahi Naa… Pyaar Hai became a blockbuster but if the film had not worked, he would have lost everything. “Hrithik never knew, I never told him. Only my wife knew about it. I said I am mortgaging the house, maybe if I require, I will take money, otherwise I will try to manage. But it so happened that I managed it in the funds I had. Had the film not done well, then I would have to shift somewhere else or… but I took that chance,” he told Mid-Day in an earlier interview.

In the documentary The Roshans, Hrithik reflected on the moment he found out what was at stake for his family. He said, “I always saw the glass half-full. I had not colour-corrected in two or three scenes, because I was handling that. And the overseas prints had already been sent. So, I came to my dad, really upset that, ‘How could you let that go?’ And I think that was the first time that my dad gave it back to me. He gave it back to me in my face. He turned to my mom, and he said, ‘I am doing everything for him, and he’s sitting here and he’s complaining’. And that’s the night I found out, my mom told me, that the house was mortgaged, the cars were mortgaged… I realised how much was at stake.”

Hrithik made his acting debut with Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai, changing the course of his career forever.