Farah Khan recalled that Hrithik Roshan was supposed to star alongside Shah Rukh Khan in Main Hoon Na, but that was before he was a star himself.

Hrithik Roshan and Shah Rukh Khan are now a part of the same franchise.

Choreographer-filmmaker Farah Khan said that Hrithik Roshan was initially supposed to star alongside Shah Rukh Khan in the film Main Hoon Na, and was actually quite nervous about the prospect of sharing the screen with a star of Shah Rukh’s stature. But when Hrithik became an overnight sensation with Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai himself, the Main Hoon Na role went to Zayed Khan. Shah Rukh and Hrithik reportedly treated each other coldly on several occasions, especially while collaborating on Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.

In an interview with Radio Nasha, Farah was asked if the rumours of Hrithik and Abhishek Bachchan being in the running for the Laxman role in Main Hoon Na were true, and she said, “It was a musical chairs situation to cast that role. Hrithik was supposed to do it initially, because I was shooting Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai, and saw him give his first shot and knew that he was going to be a star… I went to Rakesh Roshan and told him that. You can instantly make out. Rani Mukerji gave one shot in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and we all knew…”

She continued, “That time, I told Hrithik that I’d written a script and that he’d be the young boy… He was very excited. He said, ‘Shah Rukh will (work) with me?’ I said, ‘Of course’. That was the (dynamic). And then, obviously, Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai was released, Hrithik became a huge star, and the rest is history…” Shah Rukh and Hrithik were both acutely aware of their standing in the film industry, and the tension was felt on the set of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, for which Hrithik had been signed before his big debut.

In his book, Karan Johar recalled that Shah Rukh ‘distanced’ himself from Hrithik on set, because he was aware of what was being said about him in the press, because Hrithik was being projected as the man who would take his place. “It was unfair because he was too junior, and Shah Rukh was already such a big star. But that was a phase when one or two of Shah Rukh’s films had gone wrong and the media had started projecting Hrithik up there. The negativity that crept in was not justified or correct, and it was really sad. I felt Hrithik was the only one during the course of the shooting who needed a little hand-holding. See, the Bachchans didn’t have that equation with him. Shah Rukh was a bit distant at that time because of everything that was happening. Kajol was Team Shah Rukh,” Karan wrote, adding that he was left to deal with the ‘negativity’ on set.

In her 2007 book King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema, Anupama Chopra recounted the tension between the two actors, which began before they worked together on Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. “It was so wrong,” the book quoted Shah Rukh as saying. “You can’t take away ten years of work. You can’t suddenly tell me one morning, ‘Hey you’re displaced. You are too old, you are not good enough.’ I couldn’t go out of the house without someone asking me what I thought of Hrithik Roshan. It became shameless.”

Shah Rukh and Hrithik now find themselves a part of the same film franchise, the YRF Spy Universe. Director Siddharth Anand, who has worked with them both, recently spoke about the chances of them uniting on screen. “Obviously, there was a thought back then, but since we just started amalgamating this universe, it’s too early to bring everyone together. There should be a little thirst of getting this combination, but of course, this crossover will happen,” he told Pinkvilla.