Shah Rukh Khan agreed to star in Munna Bhai without reading the script, had started casting for 3 Idiots before dropping out

Actor Shah Rukh Khan, who avoided conventional marketing strategies for the third time in a row before the release of his new film, Dunki, sat for an interview with the Saudi Arabian platform MBC Group, where he spoke about the film and his long relationship with director Rajkumar Hirani. Shah Rukh said that he was the first choice to play the lead roles in both Munna Bhai MBBS and 3 Idiots, but sudden injuries forced him to step back from the projects. Munna Bhai went on to revive Sanjay Dutt’s career, while 3 Idiots remains one of Aamir Khan’s biggest hits.

Asked why it took him so long to collaborate with Hirani, Shah Rukh said in the interview, “Actually, we’re very old friends. When he started his career as a director – he was an editor – he wrote a film called Munna Bhai MBBS. I still remember, I was shooting a scene for Devdas, in which I was going to pass away. And this gentleman came and said, ‘I have a script’. And I said, ‘Okay, let’s meet day after tomorrow, I’m doing this film next’. He said, ‘You haven’t heard it’. I said, ‘I love the title, it’s a fantastic title, Munna Bhai MBBS’.  We were supposed to do that film, we sat on it for six-seven months. But I had a sudden injury, I had a spine surgery, and they didn’t know when I would recover.”

Also read – Dunki is Rajkumar Hirani’s darkest film, but it’s also his driest and dated

Story continues below this ad

Shah Rukh and Hirani were also supposed to work together on 3 Idiots, but once again, their hopes were dashed by fate. “Again there was a timing issue. We worked on the script, we did the casting together. But there was a timing issue, one of my films got delayed, I had a setback with another injury… I told him to finish it off. It was a very ambitious project, 3 Idiots, so I said, ‘You can’t have an actor coming from one film and going to another, so you please go ahead and do this’. So, that one didn’t happen.”

Dunki, which debuted in theatres on December 21, has been underwhelming both critically and commercially, especially in comparison to their past work. Shah Rukh was coming off the back-to-back blockbusters Pathaan and Jawan, the two biggest hits of his career, and Hirani hasn’t delivered a flop in two decades. Despite mixed reviews, Dunki has grossed over Rs 250 crore worldwide in less than a week of release, and should be able to pass the Rs 300 crore mark worldwide before it enters its second weekend.