Roles that A-list actors turned down - Page 7

Hrithik Roshan and Shahrukh Khan missed Rang De Basanti

Posted By: Gaurav Sharma On Saturday, 25th February 2006,00:02

Rang De Basanti has been receiving rave reviews ever since its release. Aamir Khan is no doubt the star of the film. Along with him the entire cast has been applauded for their performances. The surprise package of the film was Siddharth who plays Karan and Bhagat Singh. However the original choice for this role was Hrithik Roshan. 
Aamir Khan wanted Hrithik to play this role as he felt that he would be aptly able to portray this role, the director Rakeysh Mehra along with Aamir went to personally meet Hrithik and ask him to play this role. But Hrithik wanted to play Aamir's role in the film. Rakeysh Roshan denied this saying that Hrithik could not act in Rang De Basanti as he was busy shooting for Krrish. Later on even Arjun Rampal was slated to do this role, but due to differences with the producers things did not work out and the role fell into the lap of Siddharth. Hrithik and Arjun's loss was Siddharth gain. 

Another actor that was offered the role played by Madhavan is none other than our bollywood badshah Shahrukh Khan. Rakeysh Mehra wanted Shahrukh to play this role and he tried his best to persuade king khan to accept this role. However Shahrukh refused to do the role. 

There were two reasons for Shahrukh's refusal to do this role; firstly he did not want to play second fiddle to Aamir. It was quiet evident from the script that Aamir was the main hero of the movie and he had a meaty role. The second reason was that he did not like the role; he thought that it lacked character and depth and the length was too small. 

Director Rakeysh Mehra confirmed that he had approached Shahrukh to play the role of Flight Lieutenant Ajay Rathod, but Shahrukh could not give him the appropriate dates and hence nothing worked out with them. However he also maintained that there were other reasons for Khan's refusal. 

Although Rakeysh Mehra did not mention what the other reasons were, it is quiet obvious to all and sundry. Basically this role did not fit the King Khan's image and he would definitely have been overshadowed by Aamir. In spite of the roles being turned down by big stars the movie turned out to be a hit. Just goes to show that big stars do not always make a great movie, but it is also hard work and a good script that counts. And this especially holds true for Rang De Basanti.