Farhan Akhtar has revealed how he cast Dil Chahta Hai when Aamir Khan demanded Akshaye Khanna to play the role he wanted.
When Farhan Akhtar was trying to cast for his debut film Dil Chahta Hai, he met a few actors who turned down his offer. But when he met Akshaye Khanna, he saw a ray of hope. Farhan revealed at the recently concluded Waves Summit that Akshay was the first actor among the three lead stars to be roped in for the film and at that time, Akshay was supposed to play the role of Akash, which was later played by Aamir Khan.
Farhan revealed that when he met Aamir, they had met for the role of Sid, which was later played by Akshay, but Aamir was the first one to put forth his condition in front of the filmmaker.
Calling Akshay “an incredible person who is very honest”, he recalled that he met the actor for the role of Aakash and he had immediately given a nod. “I never thought Aamir would say yes so I never went to him.
Now it sounds trivial and kind of biased, I’m sorry because I had no such intention, but I eventually went to him because I had no choice. And I went with the feeling that he would refuse but since I hadn’t met him, I should meet him,” he shared.
Farhan added that after meeting Aamir, he liked the film but he put two conditions before joining it. “He said I will do this film but I have some conditions. So at that time the dialogues were in English so he said you take the draft of the dialogue in Hindi because right now, you have written it in English.
I wanted to know if this humour will work in Hindi. He said if I like the Hindi draft, I don’t want to play Sid, I want to play Aakash,” he shared. Farhan prepared his draft in Hindi and Aamir loved it, but the next hurdle was how he would tell Akshay about it, since the actor had already agreed to play the role of Aakash.
He shared his situation with Aamir and the actor was confident that Akshay would be willing to play another role. “I met Akshay and I told him ‘Aamir is really keen to do the film, but he wants to do Aakash’.
Akshay said ‘You came to me and met me and told me that you want me to be Aakash. If you tell me that you want me to be Sid, I don’t care. I will do any role, but I want to be in this film,'” he shared and added, “I will always be indebted to him for being so kind.”
Dil Chahta Hai also featured Saif Ali Khan, Dimple Kapadia and Preity Zinta.
