Daily Times

Not Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan, but his rival Salman Khan was the first choice to play Aishwarya Rai’s on-screen brother in romance action flick ‘Josh’.

Do you know? Bollywood’s once-beloved on and off-screen couple, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Salman Khan, could have shared the screen once again after ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’, however, unlike Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s musical, they could have played siblings on the screen if the latter would have not been replaced by SRK in ‘Josh’.

As revealed by Aish, in an old interview, the initial casting of Mansoor Khan’s film included Salman and Aamir Khan, in the place of Shah Rukh and Chandrachur Singh respectively. “I think the cast was meant to be Aamir and Salman at one point and eventually it became Shah Rukh and I think Aamir was to play Chandrachur’s role,” she had disclosed. “So the cast kept changing at different points in time but Shirley remained Shirley.” “So I had said yes to Mansoor,” added the ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ actor.

It is pertinent to mention that Salman and Aishwarya were once the most talked-about couple in Bollywood, during their brief relationship, between 1999 to 2002. Meanwhile, filmmaker Mansoor Khan’s ‘Josh’, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai, Chandrachur Singh and Sharad Kapoor, was released in theatres in June 2000. The film emerged as a commercial success, but opened to mixed reviews from critics, with praise particularly directed towards the soundtrack and performances of the cast.