Superstar Aamir Khan had visited Hrithik Roshan's home to convince the actor to play the role of Karan Singhania, which was later played by Tamil actor Siddharth, in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's 'Rang De Basanti'.
Filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, in his autobiography 'The Stranger in the Mirror', revealed that the casting of Karan Singhania was one of the biggest challenges he faced during the making of 'Rang De Basanti'.
The director had reportedly approached actors like Farhan Akhtar, Abhishek Bachchan, and Hrithik Roshan for the role, however, "every known actor kept declining the role," Mehra recalled.
"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," reads an excerpt from his book, as reported by News 18.
"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," Mehra said in the book.
In the book, Mehra also mentioned that Hollywood star Daniel Craig had auditioned for the role of the British jailor who walks freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev to be hanged. However, he did not feature in the film as he was being also considered to be the next James Bond that time, Mehra said.
'The Stranger in the Mirror', co-written by marketer-author Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta and published by Rupa, is peppered with anecdotes from Mehra's life.
The book also features first person accounts of stars like Waheeda Rahman, AR Rahman, Manoj Bajpayee, Abhishek Bachchan, Farhan Akhtar, Sonam Kapoor, Raveena Tandon, Ronnie Screwvala, Atul Kulkarni, R Madhavan, Divya Dutta and Prahlad Kakar. It has a foreword by A R Rahman and an afterword by Aamir Khan.
