{"id":903255,"date":"2026-11-02T13:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T13:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/903255\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T13:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T13:38:10","slug":"i-want-to-be-star-did-you-know-shah-rukh-khan-rejected-intellectual-films-early-in-his-career-hindi-movie-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/903255\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I want to be star\u2019: Did you know Shah Rukh Khan rejected \u2018intellectual films\u2019 early in his career? | Hindi Movie News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'I Karan Johar<\/a> has often spoken about meeting Shah Rukh Khan<\/a> in the late 1980s at Aanand Mahendroo\u2019s office, where the actor rejected a role in Indradhanush (1989), the show marking Karan\u2019s acting debut. Karan thought him arrogant at first. They later collaborated on ‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’ (1995), with Karan as assistant director, co-actor and costume stylist.<\/p>\n

Aanand Mahendroo\u2019s version of Shah Rukh Khan\u2019s story<\/p>\n

Aanand Mahendroo, however, remembers the incident differently. Speaking on Screen Spotlight earlier this year, the filmmaker said, \u201cHow Karan says it is with a little masala: \u2018Mujhe serial-verial nahi karna hai (I don\u2019t want to do any serials)!\u2019 That\u2019s not how Shah Rukh is.\u201d He confirmed that he had offered Shah Rukh the role of Bala, the elder brother of protagonist Appu, and that the actor had initially agreed to play it. The part eventually went to Akshay Anand.<\/p>\n

Why Shah Rukh Khan visited Aanand Mahendroo\u2019s office<\/p>\n

The reason behind Shah Rukh Khan\u2019s visit was a big one: he had landed his debut film, Ketan Mehta\u2019s musical parody ‘Oh Darling! Yeh Hai India’, and couldn\u2019t commit to the show. But the shoot ran well past schedule, and it was Raj Kanwar\u2019s ‘Deewana’, an action romance, that released first in 1992, a few years down the line.<\/p>\n

Shah Rukh Khan\u2019s cameo in \u2018Rajani\u2019 after stardom<\/p>\n

Even stardom didn\u2019t change Khan\u2019s equation with Aanand, the filmmaker says. After ‘Darr’ turned him into a big name, he still agreed to a cameo in Mahendroo\u2019s TV show ‘Rajani’, directed by Basu Chatterjee. \u201cHad that (Shah Rukh being arrogant) been the case, then I wouldn\u2019t have such good relations with him that years later, after Darr became a hit, we\u2019d work for a whole day together on Rajani. The next day, he allowed us to shoot in his house in Bandra,\u201d recalled Mahendroo.<\/p>\n

Shah Rukh Khan\u2019s Delhi days with Aanand Mahendroo<\/p>\n

Mahendroo\u2019s association with Shah Rukh goes back to the days when the actor was still struggling and hadn\u2019t yet moved from his hometown, Delhi, to Mumbai. Mahendroo recounted, \u201cI used to have an office in Delhi as well, and Shah Rukh would come there to meet me. I liked the guy. He was a member of Qutub Club, and would take me bowling. He would take me to Paranthe Wali Gali at night, put music on full blast, stand on top of the car, and sing Govinda\u2019s song \u2018Kaali Aankhen Miss India,\u2019\u201d referring to the popular dance track from Ajay Kashyap\u2019s 1996 film ‘Zordaar’.He described Shah Rukh as \u201cvery uninhibited,\u201d as well as \u201csmart and polished\u201d and someone who \u201cunderstands cinema.\u201d To show how clear the actor was about his career, the filmmaker recalled that his family friend, the legendary Basu Bhattacharya, once offered Shah Rukh a role in a film. Shah Rukh turned it down, telling him, \u201cI\u2019m not interested in doing intellectual films. There are quite a few actors in the industry already, I want to be a star.\u201d Mahendroo added, \u201cThe best thing is, he\u2019s very clear about what he wants to do and doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shah Rukh Khan on the sets of \u2018Pardes\u2019<\/p>\n

By the time they were working on Subhash Ghai\u2019s ‘Pardes’ (1997), Aanand and Shah Rukh had grown close enough to share a smoke on set. \u201cI saw a bit of myself in him. He just wouldn\u2019t go to the makeup room. Even when they were taking Mahima\u2019s shots or choreographer Ahmed Khan would be shooting something with the junior artistes, he\u2019d remain on set. He was living cinema all the time. And that\u2019s what resonated a lot with me,\u201d added the filmmaker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Karan Johar has often spoken about meeting Shah Rukh Khan in the late 1980s at Aanand Mahendroo\u2019s office,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[378094,2711,378095,88,4955,206,4745],"class_list":["post-903255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-aanand-mahendroo","tag-bollywood","tag-dilwale-dulhania-le-jayenge","tag-entertainment","tag-karan-johar","tag-movies","tag-shah-rukh-khan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}