It was in 2012 when ‘Student of the Year’ was released and the country got to see 3 new faces on screen – Varun Dhawan, Sidharth Malhotra and Alia Bhatt. Karan Johar, who was the director of the film, had already worked with Varun and Sidharth, who used to work as Assistant Directors in his previous films. Alia was someone who was not a part of this group.
In the recent episode of Koffee With Karan, Karan Johar revealed that Varun Dhawan and Sidharth Malhotra didn’t want Alia to be cast in ‘Student of the Year’ and were recommending other women to be cast in her place.
“I still remember with Alia, the first time that she walked in, how both of you sent me messages saying you can’t cast her. One of you said she is too young. I am saying it started like this but when we shot with her, three months post that for a photo shoot, I remember she stood quiet and didn’t look at either of you. Either she was conscious or shy because you all already knew me. She didn’t know me at all. We did the photo shoot, and right after that, I mean, I knew at the first shot,” Karan revealed, as quoted by Hindustan Times.
Karan then expressed that he is thankful to himself that he didn’t listen to Varun, who showed him pictures of other female actors who could be cast as Shanaya, at the time and went on to cast Alia anyway. But after ‘Student of the Year’, the handsome guys went on to star alongside her in many films and she became one of Karan’s favourite people.
That’s how destiny works!