Mumbai:

Filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who won critical and commercial praise for his recent release 12th Fail, shared that Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan was his first choice for his period film 1942: A Love Story.

The film starring Anil Kapoor and Manisha Koirala saw many changes in the cast. Shahrukh’s contemporary Aamir Khan also revealed that he was offered the role, but he turned it down because he did not like the script.

This story is from the time when Shahrukh was not as big a star as he is today.

Recently, speaking at the Kellogg School of Management, Vidhu said: “When I was making 1942: A Love Story, I had seen his work. Renu (Saluja, his then wife) had edited a film called Maya Memsaab. He did a small role. So I offered him the role. He was not a star at that time.”

Interestingly, Shahrukh was also supposed to do Munna Bhai MBBS, which was Rajkumar Hirani’s directorial debut. However, Shahrukh had to withdraw from the film due to back surgery.

The two eventually collaborated on the immigration drama Donkey, released last year, which clashed with the box-office release of Salaar: Part 1 – Ceasefire, starring Prabhas and Prithviraj Sukumaran.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)