Karan Johar reveals how he once tried to 'sabotage' Alia Bhatt's casting

Bollywood filmmaker Karan Johar has blown the lid off that he tried to ‘sabotage’ Alia Bhatt’s casting in Kapoor & Sons. Karan, who produced the movie under his banner Dharma Productions, shared that he had a tete-a-tete with Alia where he asked her not to do the film, because of the length of her character.

The movie, which released in 2016, had Alia Bhatt alongside Sidharth Malhotra and Fawad Khan. Directed by Shakun Batra, the movie also starred Rishi Kapoor, Rajat Kapoor and Ratna Pathak Shah.

Speaking during an 'Inside the writers' room' on Clubhouse, the filmmaker made known, "I tried to sabotage her casting because I had a one-on-one with Alia and I said, 'Listen, you don't have to do every Dharma film. You don't like it, you don't do it because the part is really nothing.' She was like, 'Yeah, I know but I love Shakun (Batra), I'll just hear it for him, he's a good friend.' I said, 'Yeah, yeah, but don't do it. It's fine because it's called Kapoor & Sons and you're not a Kapoor in the film.'"

Alia Bhatt went forward with the script narration and came back to Karan Johar with her decision to feature in the film. "She heard (the script) and she comes to my room and says, 'I really want to do this film, I really love the script, I don't care about my role.' I thought more power to her that she actually didn't see the footage, she didn't see the length of the role, she just saw the film and I wish all actors in our industry thought like that," Karan said.

Karan Johar also told the audience that he had approached six other leading actors for the role of Rahul Kapoor, portrayed by Fawad Khan, but none of the actors agreed.

Earlier, Karan Johar had established that the role was offered to six other actors before Fawad eventually came in, talking to DNA, Karan Johar stated "Yes, I had offered Fawad’s part to six different actors and no one did it. No matter what reasons they gave, I felt they were afraid of playing a homosexual man on screen. Having said that, they had a reason and I didn’t judge them for it."

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