Not Anil Kapoor, This Actor Was S Shankar’s First Choice For 2001 Movie Nayak – News18

Filmmaker Shankar predominantly works in the Tamil industry but he has occasionally dabbled with other languages as well. Most recently, he has directed the Telugu film Game Changer with Ram Charan which is slated for release soon. Among his Hindi releases, the most popular film is Nayak: The Real Hero starring Anil Kapoor. Nayak: The Real Hero was a remake of the Tamil film Mudhalvan which was directed by Shankar himself. Later, he decided to make the film in Hindi as well.

However, not all know that Anil Kapoor was not the first choice for the film. Shankar had initially signed the Baadshah of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan as the lead for Nayak.

During an interview with Rediff, Shah Rukh Khan said that he had signed Nayak. He had taken just Re 1 as the signing amount and had also told Shankar that he would give him his dates for the film. However, after Shah Rukh Khan watched the original Tamil film Mudhalvan, Shah Rukh Khan changed his mind about working on the film. Although he said he liked the film, he thought that the 1 day CM concept would not appeal to the North Indian audience. He was thus skeptical of the success of Nayak. The film involved a journalist, who, while interviewing the CM of a state, accepts the challenge of turning the CM for one day.

Shah Rukh Khan asked Shankar to make changes to the script but the director wanted to retain the concept of the Tamil film as it was. Thus Shah Rukh Khan had to part from the project and Anil Kapoor was roped in instead. Nayak did not click at the box office when it was released in 2001 but has since attained a dedicated cult following.

Shah Rukh Khan will next appear in the film The King where he will share screen space with his daughter Suhana Khan. Shankar meanwhile, has two releases up his sleeve, Indian 2 and Game Changer.