Kunal Kohli reveals Saif Ali Khan was casted in Hum Tum after three top stars rejected the film

Saif Ali Khan stars in Hum Tum

Saif Ali Khan starrer Hum Tum was recently re-released in the theatres. The film was a blockbuster hit during its initial release, with Saif becoming one of the fans’ favourite actors.

However, director Kunal Kohli has recently revealed that Saif Ali Khan was not his first choice for the role. The film revealed that he had previously offered the film to Hrithik Roshan, Vivek Oberoi and Aamir Khan, but they all rejected the film.

During a recent interview with Radio Nasha, Kunal Kohli admitted that he first approached Hrithik, and he loved the script, but the actor thought that he could not pull off the role.

The filmmaker recalled Hrithik saying, “‘I’m not in the right frame of mind. Can you wait one or two years? Let some of my films release first - after that, I’ll see if I can do this. I know some of my upcoming films are going to flop. I’m just in a bad phase.’”

Kunal added, “He was very confused. We could see he wasn’t making excuses - he simply didn’t feel confident enough. He wanted a hit film behind him before taking this on.”

The filmmaker then reached out to Aamir Khan, who was dealing with personal struggles following his separation from Reena Dutta. Kunal recalled that Aamir told him, “‘I’m not in the right frame of mind to even hear the script. So I won’t even listen to it.’”

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The filmmaker then approached Vivek and said, “He initially gave us the dates but later cancelled. He then asked for changes to the script, and we thought—let’s just leave it.”
After getting rejected by three prominent actors of that time, Aditya Chopra suggested Saif Ali Khan for the role.

Kunal recalled, "Then Adi (Aditya Chopra) asked me, ‘Why don’t you think about Saif?’ I imagined him in every frame of the film and thought he’d be fantastic. The rest is history.”

For the unversed, Hum Tum was released in 2004 and starred Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukerji in the lead roles. The film follows a cartoonist, Karan and a strong-willed Rhea and how they found each other. The film also featured veteran actors Rishi Kapoor, Kirron Kher, Rati Agnihotri, Jimmy Shergill, and Isha Koppikar.