Govinda once told Anil Sharma 'Can't do Gadar as it has so much Hindi-Muslim,' and this is how he reacted

Anil Sharma made Gadar-Ek Prem Katha back in 2001 with Sunny Deol and Ameesha Patel which was a humungous blockbuster at the box-office. However, legend says the first choice for the role of Tara Singh was Govinda, who Sharma directed in his 1998’s Maharaja. In an interaction with Bollywood Hungama, Sharma spoke about it and revealed, “Before narrating the story, I had told Govinda that I have narrated this story to Sunny Deol and I am doing this film with him. Then he asked me, ‘What is the story?’ So then I narrated Gadar’s story to him and he told me, ‘No, I can’t do this film because it has so much Hindi-Muslim.”

He added, “That was the only conversation we had about Gadar. But perhaps this misconception remained in his mind that I was offering him the film]. But he wasn’t a bad choice, he was the superstar of that time but in my mind I wanted a Punjabi hero and that could only be Sunny Deol.”

On Ameesha Patel’s attitude issues

He addressed the rumours around the film’s leading lady Ameesha Patel’s attitude issues. He stated, “(I have good relations with everybody. I’ve had my disagreements with her, but that’s her nature. We had a disagreement when we first met for the first film.”

He added, “But she comes from a big family, and she carries that attitude around with her. I’m a simple person, I believe in living with love. She does, too, but sometimes her attitude gets in the way. But she is a kind person otherwise.”

The filmmaker also revealed how her casting happened for the first Gadar. “For Sakeena, I wanted an actor with a face like the moon. But she was weak at acting. Another girl we’d shortlisted was a better actor, but Ameesha had the built-in personality of someone from an important family. I knew we would have to train her, and she agreed to undergo training for six months. She’d come to me for four or five hours, and somehow, I ingrained Sakeena’s personality in her, to the point that she is still inseparable from that character,”