In Pardes, Shah Rukh didn’t have many romantic scenes, at least nothing of what he had done before. “He kept saying that the film would flop and would harm his romantic-hero image, which he had got with Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Though the superstar agreed to be a part of the film, Subhash Ghai reveals that it wasn’t a comfortable time for both of them on the set because Shah Rukh was not convinced about playing a matchmaker. Shah Rukh thought Pardes would harm his image of romantic hero. That’s how Mahima happened, and I am glad both of my choices paid off.” An established face wouldn’t have given me that. Madhuri had even liked the script and wanted to do it but I knew the character of Ganga demanded a non-familiar face, an innocence never seen before. “For Ganga, they wanted Madhuri, who had worked with us many films. It had to be someone unknown and hence I decided to cast a newcomer. Rajiv was an NRI, so there needed to be a certain mystery about him. But I refused, simply because they would not have done justice to my characters. My last film hadn’t worked so, distributors suggested that if I cast Salman and Madhuri alongside Shah Rukh, it would give a huge boost to the film. Shah Rukh was very excited about Shikhar, but it was his desire to work with me in actor-director capacity that he said yes to Pardes,” Subhash Ghai says.ĭespite pressure, Ghai was against casting Salman and Madhuri.

Then, I called up Shah Rukh and he immediately said yes though he was sad that Shikhar was shelved. “We had to drop it and then I decided to write a female-centric, grounded story, and that’s how Pardes happened. And how the norm of the industry is that you are only known by your last hit or flop, so, people didn’t have faith in Shikhar. Shah Rukh and I were actually supposed to collaborate on Shikhar, a film with war in backdrop. “The journey of Pardes was very interesting.

Pardes cast