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Filmmaker Karan Johar had a famously difficult time casting his debut film as director, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. He eventually finalised Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukerji and Kajol for the film, which wound up as a generation-defining romance and established Karan’s directorial career. In a new interview, Raveena Tandon admitted that she, too, had been offered a part in the film, but was forced to turn it down for reasons that Karan perhaps didn’t understand at the time.
In an interview with news agency ANI, Raveena spoke about transitioning into more serious roles after playing thinly written characters in the initial phase of her career. She joked that all she had to do was change her costumes, because the lines, the scenes, and the co-stars would often be the same in every project that she took on when she started out. She said that she wanted to ‘place’ herself in a certain way in her ‘second coming’.
She said, “Karan still doesn’t forgive me for not doing Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. But he didn’t understand at that time, Kajol was my contemporary. We started together, we were both doing lead roles. So, I couldn’t have done a Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, where I was at a lower… where I probably had a smaller role like Rani. And Rani benefitted from it because she was a newcomer. That was the difference that would’ve happened at that time, and that’s what I told Karan.”
At an event, Karan said that as many as eight leading actresses turned down the offer to star in the film, in either role. Karan had said at the Talent Next launch, “I had asked everyone. Main bhikari ban chuka tha uss film mai. Eight heroines had already rejected me for the Rani Mukerjee’s role. Mujhe laga, agar koi na mile toh mujhe khud short-skirt pehen ke woh role karna padega (I thought if I don’t get anyone, I might have to wear short skirt and play the role). Eventually eight heroines said no to me and nobody besides Aishwarya Rai even called me back after hearing the narration.”
Aishwarya spoke about why she turned down the film in an interview with Filmfare. She said, “I’m in a catch-22 situation, really. Though I’m a newcomer, I’m compared with all the senior actresses.” She added, “If I’d done the film, it would have been tittered that, ‘Look, Aishwarya Rai is back to doing what she did in her modelling days—leaving her hair straight, wearing minis, and pouting glamorously into the camera.’ Ultimately, the hero goes back to the more real person. I know if I’d done Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, I would have been lynched.”
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