Before making his Bollywood debut in Kai Po Che! in 2013, Sushant Singh Rajput started his career in the entertainment industry as a background dancer and starred in two TV serials namely Kis Desh Mein Hai Meraa Dil and Pavitra Rishta. The latter proved to be his breakthrough role, which paved his way to the Hindi film industry.
Sushant was set to play the lead role in the 2014 romcom Hasee Toh Phasee, produced by Karan Johar and Anurag Kashyap, before his debut film came out, but the film's actress Parineeti Chopra called him a 'television actor' and refused to share screen space with him. She later recommended Sushant's name to Aditya Chopra for the 2013 romcom Shuddh Desi Romance. The late actor left Hasee Toh Phasee and went on to sign a 3-film deal with Yash Raj Films.
Anurag Kashyap talked about the whole incident in his interview with the journalist Faye D’Souza in 2020. The filmmaker said, "He was supposed to do the film (Hasee Toh Phasee) and we had to find an actress and we reached out to Parineeti Chopra. She said ‘I don’t want to work with a television actor’. So we explained to her that who Sushant Singh is, he is doing Kai Po Che, he is doing PK and by the time Hasee Toh Phasee comes out, he will not just be a television actor. And she was doing a film called Shuddh Desi Romance and she must have gone and spoken to YRF, they called him and said ‘Why don’t you come and do Shuddh Desi Romance and not do that film?’ And he disappeared on us."
Sidharth Malhotra replaced Sushant in Haseee Toh Phasee. Both Hasee Toh Phasee and Shuddh Desi Romance, which also starred Vaani Kapoor, turned out to be successful at the box office. Sushant's second film with YRF was Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! in 2015. His third film with the production house, titled Paani, was shelved due to the creative differences between its director Shekhar Kapur and YRF's head honcho Aditya Chopra.
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