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SRK Was Confident About Baazigar, He Said 'Only I Can Do The Best': Ratan Jain On Casting Him As Anti-Hero
Long before Shah Rukh Khan spread his arms as DDLJ's Raj and sashayed his way into hearts, the superstar was known for sending shivers down the spine with his anti-hero acts. One of them is Abbas Mustan's thriller Baazigar in which he shared screen space with Kajol and Shilpa Shetty.
The actor's portrayal of a cold-blooded killer with a vendatta in this film is considered to be one of his memorable roles which put on the path of stardom. Interestingly, this role was turned down by many actors like Salman Khan and Anil Kapoor before it landed in King Khan's lap.
Recently, when Shah Rukh Khan completed 29 years in Bollywood, producer Ratan Jain who bankrolled Baazigar walked down the memory and recalled how SRK was cast in this film as the anti-hero in a chat with Pinkvilla.
Jain revealed that they had approached Salman Khan and Anil Kapoor but things didn't work out with them. He watched some portions of Deewana which was yet to be released and was very impressed with Shah Rukh Khan. It was Jain who recommended SRK's name to Abbas-Mustan and the rest is history.
"We tried for Salman Khan and Anil Kapoor, but things didn't work out. There were some guys who wanted to do the film, but they didn't fit the bill. Deewana had not released back then and we had the music rights of the film. I saw some portions and was very impressed with Shah Rukh. I then recommended him to my directors and we decided to move ahead," Ratan Jain told Pinkvilla.
Further, the producer recalled his first meeting with Shah Rukh Khan at a hotel for the film's narration and said, "I first met him at the Sea Rock Hotel, at the pool side. I just told him the one-line idea and he confidently said, I will do the best, only I can do the best. He was so confident and everything was decided on the first meeting itself. He didn't want a narration too as he had seen the film that inspired Baazigar - A Kiss Before Dying."
Here's an interesting trivia here. Baazigar was inspired by a scene in the Hollywood film A Kiss Before Dying. In this movie, the hero, while having a romantic conversation with his girlfriend, throws her off a terrace, killing her. Reportedly, Abbas-Mustan were so impressed by this scene that they wrote a film script to incorporate this sequence.
Shah Rukh Khan's negative role in Baazigar earned him a Filmfare Award for Best Actor. Over the years, Ratan Jain and King Khan teamed up on films like Yes Boss, Josh, Badshah and Main Hoon Na.
"Most of the time, he left things on me. He always asked me to pay what I thought would be good for him based on the market price. More than money, he was always passionate about cinema," Jain was quoted as saying by the news portal.
