Not Pooja Bedi, but this actress was originally signed for Aamir's Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, she rejected film because...

Aamir Khan's Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (JJWS) is one of the milestones of his career. The coming-of-age sports film has a cult following. On May 22, JJWS completed 32 years, and the director of the film, Mansoor Khan, shared an interesting trivia about the movie. 

Jo Jeeta... had an ensemble cast including Ayesha Jhulka, Deepak Tijori, Mamik Singh, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Deven Bhojani, and Pooja Bedi. Apart from Aamir, the performances of Deepak, Mamik, and Pooja were widely appreciated by the masses and critics. However, now it's been learnt that Pooja was a last-minute replacement for another actress. Yes, Pooja wasn't the first choice for the film. 

Who was signed to play Devika in Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar? 

In an interview with Zoom, Mansoor revealed that actress Nagma was signed to play Devika in his film. He also asserted that the actress “abandoned” the project four days before it went on floors. Speaking about Nagma, Mansoor said that Nagma quit the project as she's not in the starring role, “I had told her right from the beginning that she was not the heroine. I don’t want to blame her, but the least she could have done was to inform me. You can’t hang up on me when I’m planning a forty-day outdoor schedule. Later, of course, she came to me and said it was the biggest mistake of her life." 

.

Was Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar inspired by Hollywood's Breaking Away? 

In the same interview, Mansoor opened up about his film being inspired by Breaking Away (1979). He said, "Everybody thinks I wrote JJWS after seeing Peter Yates. Breaking Away. That’s not true. Right from 1981 on, I wanted to make a film about a guy who is a loser who finally gets his groove. That’s what had happened to me. I had gone to college for five years in the US and wasted my father’s money. I came back angry and defensive. The whole world was my enemy at that time (laughs). JJWS was born of my anger at that time." Aamir's Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar was remade in Telugu as Thammudu (1999) which was remade in multiple languages.

Read: This film made Dharmendra star, was originally offered to Sunil Dutt, actor suffered near-death injury, movie earned...