At the Mahurat of the film, Priyanka Chopra's then Manager Prakash Jaju egged producer Galani to meet Priyanka in her make-up van. Vijay Galani reveals in the book, "She'd just had some nasal surgery done in London where the bridge of her nose had collapsed. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I had a little bit of shooting here in Film City and then a long schedule planned in London. How could we shoot with the heroine's nose looking the way it did? quipped Galani.
He recounts that Priyanka Chopra was not perturbed by it and was confident that her nose would be fine in a month's time, before the London schedule of the film.
A month passed and her nose was still an issue. Bobby Deol too was not comfortable with Priyanka's look and was ready to return the signing amount. Mahesh Manjrekar's market value too crashed owing to a spate of flops at the box-office. Galani then shelved the film.
After Prakash Jaju pleaded, Anil Sharma signed Priyanka as the second lead. Anil Sharma refuted the report of demoting Priyanka as the second lead in the film in the book. After signing Priyanka for the film, Anil Sharma had gone to the United States and Canada for a couple of months. He was quoted as saying, "When I came back and started working on the script, I began to hear that she'd had some surgery done, that she wanted pouting lips like Julia Roberts.
He was informed by the editor of a publication that Priyanka was dropped from 3-4 films and was shown a photo of Priyanka in a swimsuit coming out of the pool. "I told him, This is not Priyanka, this is someone else. This girl is really awful looking while Priyanka is a pretty girl with a beautiful smile.' He insisted that the girl in the photograph was Priyanka. I was shocked, so I called her and she came to meet me with her mother.., recalls Sharma.
When Priyanka and her mother Madhu Chopra came to meet Sharma, his angry outburst shocked and stunned the mother-daughter duo. They explained to him that the surgery would take 6-7 months to heal and since she has been dropped from other films, they were going back to Bareilly.
"I knew she'd do very well. Par kitni door kaun jata hai yeh toh Ishwar hi bata sakta hai (But how far a person will go is something only god can tell you). By god's grace, her choice of films also turned out well for her, he concluded
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