‘Dharmendra sat there in his lungi’: Hema Malini called Shah Rukh Khan ‘ugly’, signed him after Salman Khan, Aamir Khan said no |

Producer Viveck Vaswani revealed how Hema Malini unexpectedly signed Shah Rukh Khan for her film ‘Dil Aashna Hai’. She called Vaswani’s home, waking up a sleeping Shah Rukh. Despite initially calling him ‘ugly’, Malini offered him the role after Aamir Khan and Salman Khan declined. This marked Shah Rukh’s debut film, though ‘King Uncle’ was shot first.

Producer Viveck Vaswani recenlty opened up about Shah Rukh Khan, ahead of the superstar’s birthday. He also shared an interesting anecdote about how actor Hema Malini signed Shah Rukh for the film Dil Aashna Hai.

In conversation with Radio Nasha, Viveck recalled how a surprise call from Hema Malini caught Shah Rukh and him both off guard. He shared, “That was the day I realised that I was in the industry. Hema Malini called up my house, and my father picked up the phone. She introduced herself and asked him, ‘Is Viveck Vaswani there?’ He asked her, ‘Hema Malini who?’ and she said, ‘Hema Malini, the superstar.’ He came and woke me up, and he literally picked me up by my collar and said that Hema Malini is on the phone.“

Elaborating further, she added, “She said, ‘That boy Shah Rukh Khan, is he still sleeping at your place?’ I said ‘yes’, and she told me to wake him up. Then I picked Shah Rukh by the collar, and he went and talked to her. She told him to come by the house at 5 pm and put the phone down.”

He continued, “We went to her house like two little mice, and someone was sitting in front of us reading the newspaper. We didn’t recognise him, but when he put the paper down, we realised that it was Dharmendra. Hema Ji came and told Shah Rukh, ‘But you’re very ugly.’ I asked her, ‘Why do you want him?’ She said, ‘Aamir Khan and Salman Khan have said no.’ I told her that Rakesh Roshan and Ramesh Sippy had signed him, and that was a lie because when I need to give people careers, I can lie like a king.”

“She said, ‘I will pay you Rs 50k, and I am Hema Malini, so there are no questions.’ I mean, she already had Jitendra, Mithun Chakraborty, Amrita Singh, Dimple Kapadia, and Kabir Bedi. Though Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman was always his launch film, the first was Dil Aashna Hai, and the first shoot was King Uncle by Rakesh Roshan in Nairobi,” he concluded.On the work front, Shah Rukh Khan will next be seen in King. It will also star Suhana Khan, Deepika Padukone, Rani Mukerji, Abhishek Bachchan and others. SRK will be celebrating his 60th birthday on November 2.