Before Shah Rukh Khan went on to become this big superstar, he had a lot to do to prove himself. At that time, when Shah Rukh was seen in his earlier films like ‘Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman’ and ‘Deewana’, Aamir became a huge star with ‘Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak.’ In a recent interview, adman Prahlad Kakkar has opened up on how he was once adamant on casting Aamir or a commercial, even though, he was charging more than SRK. This particular commercial featured Aishwarya Rai and Mahima Chaudhry. He said during a chat with Vickey Lalwani, “Aamir was charging some Rs 17 lakhs and Shah Rukh was only charging Rs 6 Lakh at that time. And why Shah Rukh was charging Rs 6 Lakh was also because he was short of Rs 6 Lakh for buying his house (Mannat). So he said, I am short of Rs 6 Lakh, you give me and I will do the ad. So I said he is not right for the film. I wanted the actor. I wanted someone who had the image of an actor. Money was not my concern. Then they went round the mulberry bush and then after about six months of negotiating Aamir said yes. He didn’t say yes to them, they said yes to him. He didn’t budge.”
The adman added further, “The image that Aamir had with Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak was an innocent boy next door. Just a nice, clean boy. And that’s what I needed for the ad film. And Shah Rukh was there but he didn’t have such a clean image. Because his first film was Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman. Or something like that. And the character that he played was not as squeaky clean as the character that Aamir played.” When asked about his experience of working with Shah Rukh, he said, “Great. He is extremely professional.” He as also asked about working with Salman and he said, “He used to be on my set many a times because he was very good friends with my wife who is a production manager. He used to do ad films in earlier days but he was not star material in the earlier days before he made his debut. He was not a great actor that time. He would come a lot on set that time and would say ‘I’ll do it for Rs 2000, 3000.”
