Aamir Wanted to Play Max in Josh but I Had SRK in Mind: Mansoor Khan

Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar cast reunited after 24 years at Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival on Saturday.

Ending the session filled with nostalgia, film's director Mansoor Khan gave a good news to all his fans. The director said he would consider returning to films, provided Rajkumar Hirani wrote a script for him. Khan was offered a script of Barf by Hirani but he felt he couldn't have done justice to the film.

He also shared his failed experiment to bring Aamir and Shah Rukh Khan together for Josh. He said, "The ambition of bringing two of them together failed because of Max. Max's character was so charismatic that everybody wanted that role."

"I remember when I went to Kajol to play Max's sister, she listened to the script and agreed to do the film if she was offered to play Max."

Aamir wanted to play Max but Mansoor had SRK in mind for the role.

Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar released at a time when Bollywood was recovering from the flamboyance of the 80's and entering the foreign locales of the 90's. Did it ever occur to him that the film might just get lost or receive a tag of 'too ahead of its time'?

"Jo Jeeta.... was in mind long before Qyamat Se Qayamat Tak happened. The film was already behind its actual schedule, so the fear of being tagged as too futuristic didn't occur. It was a light film with inspiration, therefore it was meant to stand out."

The film received rave reviews by the critics in the year it was released and even won Best Film at the Filmfare, however the Best Actor Award went to Anil Kapoor to Beta.

Mansoor Khan elaborates, "Aamir was disappointed for not winning the Best Actor Award. Kamal Haasan who was presenting the awards that year had written his own winner list and he had written Aamir's name on the Best Actor placard."

It is after the disappointed snub, that Aamir Khan said his goodbyes to award shows and stopped turning up at such functions.