When Aamir Khan went to Hrithik Roshan's house to convince him for 'Rang De Basanti', said, 'it’s a good film, kar le'

Aamir Khan starrer ‘Rang De Basanti’ was an iconic film. It also starred R Madhavan, Soha Ali Khan, Siddharth and Sherman Joshi in key roles. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra recently released his ‘autobiography titled The Stranger in the Mirror’ where he revealed that Aamir Khan tried to convince Hrithik Roshan to play the character of Karan Singhania in the film. The role was played by Tamil actor Sidharth. 

In his memoir, the director has talked about the various challenges he faced while filming ‘Rang De Basanti’, one of which was casting for the role of Karan Singhania. Rakeysh also shared that he had approached a few people for the role, including actors Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar and Abhishek Bachchan.

As per News18, an excerpt from his book read, “Every known actor kept declining the role to play Karan Singhania. I had first offered it to Farhan Akhtar. This was a time when he had never acted in a film before and was one of the most respected young directors. He was both surprised and amused. When I narrated it to Abhishek, he told me point-blank, ‘I thought you are crazy but after hearing your narration I think you are completely nuts.’”

"I requested Aamir to put in a word with Hrithik Roshan. Aamir even went to Hrithik’s house. ‘It’s a good film—kar le’ (do it). But it wasn’t meant to be. Finally, Siddharth signed on the dotted line in January 2005, one month before the shoot. He had never done a Hindi film before. Bharathi had seen the Tamil film Boys, starring Siddharth, a couple of months before the shoot, and his energy and unique combination of innocence and naivety came through. She thought he could pull off the conflict in Karan’s character well. The senior actors accepted the smaller parts with grace—Om Puri, Anupam Kher, Kirron Kher, Mohan Agashe and K.K. Raina are all masters of their craft and formed a dependable unit on which we built the movie," he added.

Rakeysh has previously revealed that Hollywood actor Daniel Craig had auditioned for a role in the hit 2006 film, however, he took a rain check on it as he was cast as James Bond in ' The sky is Blue' in the meantime. Daniel was to play the character of James McKinley, the British jailor who walked Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev to their hanging in the film.

The director also shared that actor Shah Rukh Khan was approached for the role of Flt Lt Ajay Rathod and he even flew to the US where the actor was showing for ‘Swades’, to sign him, however, the dates didn’t work out. The role was later played by R Madhavan.