Farhan Akhtar was merely 25 years old when he directed Hindi cinema’s iconic film Dil Chahta Hai. In a recent interaction, the filmmaker recalled how casting for the film wasn’t a cakewalk, as many actors turned down the project before he finally managed to bring Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan, and Akshaye Khanna on board.
Many actors refused Dil Chahta Hai
Speaking to India TV, Farhan admitted that “it was not easy to cast superstar Aamir Khan” for the film. He shared, “When I had written the film, I had thought of casting Hrithik Roshan, who had just made a debut in the previous year, Abhishek Bachchan, another actor who had just made his debut, and Akshaye Khanna, with whom I had worked in his first film, Himalay Putra. So, I wanted to work with these three young actors as Dil Chahta Hai was that kind of a film. But they refused for some reason or another, except Akshaye Khanna.”
Farhan approached Aamir Khan as a last resort
Farhan admitted that he refrained from approaching Aamir for a long time because he thought the star wouldn’t take up his film, as many leading men were avoiding multi-starrers then. “I had never even thought that Aamir Khan would agree to do this film. So, I met all the actors and nobody wanted to do a multi-hero film. The trend during the late 90s was that of a love triangle, and they wanted to do a film on that. However, in the end, I went to Aamir Khan because I didn’t have a choice.”
Aamir made Farhan wait for eight months
Farhan revealed that since the script was originally written in English, Aamir thought it should be made in English too. “When I had given him the script, it had dialogues written in English. He told me that I should make the film in English, but I said I will come back with Hindi dialogues,” Farhan shared.
However, even after reworking the dialogues, Aamir took months to commit. “When I read him the script with Hindi dialogues, he told me that he wants to listen to the script again after three months. I kept waiting after three months, but he got busy with work. Like that, eight months passed.”
Akshaye Khanna, Aamir Khan and Saif Ali Khan in a still from Dil Chahta Hai.
Farhan read the film’s script to the camera while standing outside Aamir’s house
Frustrated but determined, Farhan did something unheard of. “Then I just went to his house and I started reading the entire script while standing outside at his gate through the video doorbell,” he shared. But his persistence paid off — Aamir was convinced by Farhan’s determination and agreed to star in the film.
Aamir would have refused if Farhan had approached him through Javed Akhtar
Farhan also revealed that Javed Akhtar wanted to call Aamir to request him to star in the film. However, Javed refrained from doing so — a decision that later proved wise. “Aamir told my father, ‘Good that you didn’t call me because if you would have called me, then I might not have met Farhan. I wanted to see that he wants me in the film, and he’s ready to wait for me. I wanted to test his resolve.’ This is why Aamir made me wait for eight months. And the rest is history.”
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Saif wanted to exit Dil Chahta Hai 10 days before the shoot
Even after finalising Aamir, Farhan faced another setback — Saif Ali Khan wanted to leave the film. “Ten days before the shoot, Saif called me and told me that he has gotten a good film, which has a love triangle and his role is really good in the film and he wants to do that instead of my film,” Farhan said.
Aamir convinced Saif to stay on: ‘You will make the biggest mistake’
Aamir once again came to the rescue. “We all were heartbroken. We called an emergency meeting at my father‘s place. At the meeting, there was my father, me, my partner Ritesh Sidhwani and Aamir Khan, and we were deciding how to convince Saif to stay in the film.”
He added, “We all convinced him to stay on in the film, and Aamir even told Saif that he will make the biggest mistake of his career to leave this film. Somehow, he got convinced. Also, Aamir had told me that if Saif still refuses to do the film, then only one person can play his role, and that is me.”
