Cast perfect: A look at epic casting changes in Hindi cinema : Bollywood News

What we see in Hindi cinema is what we get. The recent signing of Deepika Padukone for Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Ram Leela is but the latest example of a film planned with someone else and made with another. Kareena Kapoor had been the director's original choice. Deepika has also been stepping into more roles first offered to others, like Rohit Shetty's Chennai Express, again planned with Kareena amongst others. Shahid Kapoor has just walked out of Maneesh Sharma's film with Aditya Chopra as the script changes and delays saw his dates clash with the four new films he has signed.

Cast perfect: A look at epic casting changes in Hindi cinema

Changes in casting from the original plans of the filmmaker are nothing new. Last week's Joker, if all had gone as planned, would have had Shah Rukh Khan in the title-role, not Akshay Kumar. Salman Khan's Ek Tha Tiger is nearing the 200 crore plus figure, Yash Raj Films' first film to reach that landmark, and one can only conjecture now on how their Chak De! India, originally offered to him as per the buzz, would have looked and fared with Salman rather than Shah Rukh!

However, irrespective of how similarly or different that film would have fared, and allowing for the tweaking of the script that has to be done after a wish-list star does not come on board, we must say that we cannot imagine Chak De! India minus SRK, just as we cannot imagine Karan Arjun minus Salman, which happened only because Ajay Devgn (or Devgan as he was spelt then!) stepped out of the film because of creative differences with filmmaker Rakesh Roshan. Neither can we imagine SRK as the unforgettable Munna Bhai, for Munna Bhai MBBS was first offered to him, and his creative inputs to the film despite not doing it for technical reasons have been rewarded with a grateful mention in the end-credits of Munna Bhai MBBS.

This also necessitated another change - Dutt was the choice for the small cameo as a young Muslim cancer patient, and Jimmy Sheirgill thus got his most memorable cameo. Similarly, Arshad Warsi was a last-minute replacement after Vidhu Vinod Chopra threw out an actor with attitude. Chopra, however, refuses to name the artiste, with whom he has pledged never to work!

With Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra had rejected the script of Zanjeer as producer-actor (never mind if he soon did the reworked Waqt-meets-Zanjeer film, Yaadon Ki Baaraat) and the film had gone to Dev Anand (who wanted songs to be lip-synched by him!) and Raaj Kumar before it fell into Bachchan's lap! And B.R.Chopra could not make Baghban with Dilip Kumar in the '80s as no heroine seemed right as his screen wife. Later, his ill-health sent the project into hibernation and finally his son Ravi Chopra made the film with Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini, the latter becoming his most liked co-star in his 'senior' phase after the thundering success of the movie.

On the other hand, Salim-Javed's script for peak-time Bachchan had to be shifted after the duo's split and Bachchan's health issues following his accident to Anil Kapoor in Mr India!

Casting changes are by no means new to Hindi cinema. We all know of how Dilip Kumar was the original choice for the role that Rajendra Kumar did in Raj Kapoor's Sangam, that Dilip was instrumental in getting Sadhana out of Sangharsh and bringing in Vyjayanthimala, only to have differences with her by the time the film was half ready!

Vyjayanthimala, on the other hand, was first offered and considered respectively, by Salim-Javed for the key roles essayed by Nirupa Roy in both Deewaar (which Yash Chopra wanted to make with Rajesh Khanna in the role done by Shashi Kapoor!) and Manoj Kumar's Kranti! She politely nixed the former as she never returned to the screen.

Few know also that B.R.Chopra wanted to make the family saga of three brothers and their parents separated from each other by a devastating earthquake with Prithviraj Kapoor and his three sons Raj, Shammi and Shashi Kapoor (who had a two-film contract with his banner from which Dharamputra was already released). But a filmmaker colleague pointed out with some justification that a few sequences where the father interacts with his sons on screen without knowing who they are would look absurd both for the audience and from the narrative point because of the strong familial similarity in their features and voices!

Today, we cannot imagine either Tumsa Nahin Dekha or Teesri Manzil minus Shammi Kapoor (who broke through with the former film and changed the Hindi film hero forever!), but both these Nasir Husain-directed films saw the filmmaker wanting Dev Anand. In 1956, when Tumsaâ€¦ was being conceived, it was because Shammi Kapoor was a flop star in whom only producer S.Mukerji, Nasir's own mentor, had a lot of faith, while in the latter case, Nasir wanted to repeat Dev after Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai, that too with Dev's brother Vijay Anand as director.

Perhaps the least known change was the casting of Salman Khan in his debut solo film that made him an overnight star - Maine Pyar Kiya. The film was actually planned with - if reports are to be believed - Vikas Bhalla! Now if that's not about destiny being supreme even for stars, what is? In a similar case (besides Ajay Devgn), Armaan Kohli had refused Shah Rukh's role in Baazigar!

And nothing else can also explain the fact, perhaps, that every such change is usually for the better. For example, can we really imagine Sholay with Danny Denzongpa or Shatrughan Sinha as Gabbar Singh, or as Shekhar Kapur recently revealed, Anupam Kher as Mogambo in Mr. India?

Happily too, we had Karisma Kapoor replacing Urmila Matondkar in Dil To Pagal Hai, while it was the other way around in Judaai. Govinda refused Akshaye Khanna's role in Taal as he did not want to play second fiddle to Anil Kapoor after their doing equal roles in Mahesh Bhatt's Awargee and David Dhawan's Deewana Mastana.

Date problems, creative differences, afterthoughts, ego issues and personal matters - there are so many reasons for such 'cast conflicts.'

Vinod Khanna opted out of Prakash Mehra's Namak Halaal fearing secondary treatment, and Shashi Kapoor came in. Sanjeev Kumar was to do the role of Shakaal essayed by Kulbhushan Kharbanda (for whom it proved his passport to fame) in Ramesh Sippy's Shaan but his health problems forced him to leave the film.
Marriage led to Dimple Kapadia quitting her husband Rajesh Khanna's home production Roti, resulting in one of the biggest of the seven Rajesh Khanna-Mumtaz hits. Neetu Singh was the first choice for Smita Patil's role in Shakti, but suddenly left films after marriage, while Parveen Babi was replaced with Zeenat Aman (whose clone she was touted to be!) in Laawaris when she arbitrarily quit films for a while.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan too has a long list of exits - Janasheen (Celina Jaitly stepped in), Mangal Pandey - The Rising and Chalte Chalte (Rani Mukerji), Bluffmaster! (Priyanka Chopra) and now Heroine (Kareena Kapoor, who had actually been Madhur Bhandarkar's first choice, had cited date hassles when first approached).

Finally, here are some rarely-known cast changes of the past: Hrishikesh Mukherjee was inspired to write the story of Anand after his good friend Raj Kapoor fell ill and he wondered what would happen if Kapoor did not recover. When he finally wrote and directed the film more than a decade later, he not only dedicated it to Raj Kapoor (mercifully still hale and hearty) but wanted Raj's younger brother Shashi Kapoor in the title-role. A careless secretary and his demand for a steep price prevented this, but today, we cannot imagine anyone other than Khanna as the protagonist.

On the other hand, Jeetendra took up his career-defining Farz, and Danny Denzongpa his breakthrough Dhund, only after multiple heroes and (with Dhund) Shatrughan Sinha thumbed down the roles. While Sinha had decided to become a hero, Jeetendra took Farz only to get money to get his sister married!

In another Kapoor saga, Randhir Kapoor was the obvious choice to play Raj as an adolescent in the first chapter of Mera Naam Joker, but so overweight was he that younger brother Rishi Kapoor made his adult acting debut before his elder brother!

And finally, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's impossible wish-list for the three heroes of Rang De Basanti was Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan!