How Zareen Khan, Salman Khan’s fan, made her debut opposite the superstar in ‘Veer’

New Delhi: Actress Zareen Khan, who celebrates her 33rd birthday today, revealed how she landed up starring opposite superstar Salman Khan in ‘Veer’ a decade ago. ‘Veer’ was Zareen’s debut film, though it didn’t fare well at the box office, her role in the movie is always remembered. Zareen said that she had not anticipated that her casual visit as a Salman fan on the sets of ‘Yuvraj’ will change her life forever.  

Speaking to BollywoodLife, Zareen said, “I was on Salman’s film shoot. He was shooting for Yuvraj, I remember. And I was there as a fan or whatever you’d want to call it. And I had no idea that a conversation that was happening with me as a fan would change my life. I never ever thought that I’d be an actress”.

The 33-year-old actress further elaborated that Salman asked her for her pictures and hours later, she had got a brief idea that she was being considered for the ‘Veer’.   

“I had met Salman purely as a fan and we happened to start talking and he had asked me, ‘Whether you have your pictures?’ And me, like a dumb person, I started showing him pictures that I had on my newly acquired camera phone. And he said, ‘No…no…no…not these. Do you have your portfolio pictures?’ I was like, ‘No!’,” she said.

Salman personally managed everything and next, she was asked to give an audition as the director Anil Sharma wasn’t sure if she could speak in Hindi.

” Yes, I was asked to give an audition because the Director, Anil Sharma sir, wasn’t really sure if I would be able to speak fluent Hindi. For that matter, even after ‘Veer’, for a very long time, people weren’t sure if I am an Indian or if I speak Hindi and all those sorts of things. But, yeah…somehow I passed my auditions with flying colours and I became a part of this industry,” Zareen added.

‘Veer’ was set during the British Era. Salman played a warrior while Zareen starred as a princess.  The film also starred Mithun Chakraborty, Jackie Shroff, Sohail Khan and Rishabh Jain.