‘Sarfarosh’, which recently completed 25 years since release, starred Aamir Khan in the lead role, and offered him a good break from his romantic film hero image. Recently, the film director John Matthew Matthan, in an interview, shared how the producers of the film wanted Shah Rukh Khan, and not Aamir, to headline the film.
John Matthew Matthan told Indian Express that he, however, wanted to have Aamir in the lead after he watched a scene of his film with Madhuri Dixit.
“I was staying at a small guest house in Delhi. On television there, I saw a small scene from one of Aamir’s films where his character was going to rape Madhuri Dixit’s character. And I felt that this guy looks honest, he is not going to rape this girl and that this was just an act. But I felt he suits the role. He was not a big star back then actually. So when I came back to Mumbai and started work on Sarfarosh with Aamir in my mind,” he shared.
He said that the producers wanted Shah Rukh Khan. John Matthew Matthan recalled, “I met my friend Manmohan Shetty, who owned Adlabs, and told him that I want to make a film. Around this time, Shetty had started Entertainment One to produce feature films. He had funded two films of my friends, both of which starred Shah Rukh Khan. One was Vikram Mehrotra’s ‘Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa’, directed by Kundan Shah and the other was Praveen Nischol’s ‘English Babu Desi Mem’. So at that time, all of them suggested I take Shah Rukh. I said, ‘Listen, I don’t think Shah Rukh suits my role. I don’t have him in my mind,’ but they said that we would be able to save more money as the three of us could get a deal, but I didn’t want to.”
John later met Aamir, who read the script and said ‘yes’. The filmmaker said, “Then I started studying Aamir, he had done only love stories. I felt that was good because he was unassuming. I needed a hero who transforms, then you are with him, rooting for him because you feel that this guy is too vulnerable. In a realistic movie like ‘Sarfarosh’, I needed the audience to feel for the guy. With all three considerations, I was sure I wanted Aamir.”
‘Sarfarosh’ hit the silver screens on April 30, 1999, and it featured Aamir in the role of ACP Ajay Singh Rathore alongside Naseeruddin Shah and Sonali Bendre.
