Mumbai: The green-eyed Hrithik Roshan and charming Ameesha Patel’s adorable on-screen chemistry in ‘Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai’ had left the audience spellbound at the start of the new millennium.
As the film was re-released in theatres on Tuesday after 25 years, let’s revisit how Rakesh Roshan roped in Ameesha, opposite his son Hrithik in the latter’s Bollywood debut.
As per reports, Kareena Kapoor was Rakesh Roshan’s first choice to play Sonia (Hrithik’s love interest) in the film.
However, things didn’t work out between the filmmaker and the actress apparently because of the interference of Bebo’s mother Babita.
Eventually, the filmmaker brought on board Ameesha, a newcomer, to play the leading lady in the film.
Now, years later, Ameesha during a conversation with Bollywood Bubble, revealed that Kareena didn’t leave the film due to differences between the filmmaker and her mother, but was asked to leave the film because of differences between the filmmaker and her.
“Actually, she (Kareena) didn’t back out. From what Rakesh ji told me, he asked her to leave the film because they were having differences,” said Ameesha.
Rakesh Roshan had earlier claimed that Babita’s ‘interference’ was the reason behind Kareena not being a part of the film.
When asked about her first impression of Hrithik while working with him in her debut film, she said, “I knew him when we were teenagers. He was a thin, introverted, and awkward teenager. He was shy like me. When I came back to Mumbai after my education in Boston and saw him, he had completely transformed!”
She added, “It was like this caterpillar had become a butterfly. I looked at him and said, ‘Superstar!’ But he could not digest it, and called me biased. We both had changed from gawky teenagers to young people. We became confident and talkative. The shyness had fallen over. And we hit it off from the word go! I used to call him Pierce Brosnan, the Bond!”
