In his autobiography 'The Stranger in The Mirror', Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra wrote about the incident when Aamir Khan had tried to convince Hrithik Roshan to play the role of Karan Singhania in Rang De Basanti. The character was eventually played by Tamil actor Siddharth.
Mehra spoke about the challenges he faced while shooting the film. The filmmaker wrote that he had approached a few people, including Farhan Akhtar, Abhishek Bachchan and Hrithik Roshan.
"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,’" Mehra wrote in the book, as reported by News18.
"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.
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