Not Sunny Deol but Govinda was offered Gadar first? Director Anil Sharma clarifies

Recently, the iconic cult film, Gadar : Ek Prem Katha starring Sunny Deol and Ameesha Patel completed 20 years. On this special milestone, filmmaker Anil Sharma opened up about shooting the film and various anecdotes.

Rumours had it that Bollywood actors Govinda and Neelam were offered ‘Gadar’ first. When the director Anil Sharma was asked about the same, he clarified in a recent interview:

"This is an outright lie. People talk. The truth of the matter is that I was working with Govinda on Maharaja. During Maharaja I told him the story of Gadar. He perhaps misunderstood that I wanted to cast him in the film, and that's how the rumours originated."

The director clarifies that Sunny Deol was first and last choice for the film, and after auditioning several actresses, the makers decided to go with a newcomer for the female lead. Anil Sharma told RJ Siddharth Kannan in Hindi:

"I would work with him in a heartbeat, on not one but 10 films, but I never wanted to do Gadar with him. Sunny Deol was the first and last choice for the central role. And as far as the heroines are concerned, I had approached several big actresses of the time; Neelam was definitely not one of them. They had all some problem or the other. Some didn't like the story, others didn't like us. Some had their own personal agendas, some didn't want to do period films."

He says they conducted auditions and tested over 400 actors, after which Ameesha Patel was cast.

Meanwhile, in a statement shared with us, the filmmaker had also hinted about the possibility of the sequel to the 2001 film.