Via Rajeev Masand
When Karan Johar first auditioned Alia Bhatt for Student of the Year (2012) she was all of 15 and showed up at his office in her school uniform. She was accompanied by her mother, and when Sidharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan first spotted her, they were reportedly dead against she being cast for the part.
The boys, who were hanging out at Dharma when Alia stopped by to audition, reportedly sent Karan messages while she was still on the premises, making it clear they didn’t approve of her as their potential heroine. ‘She’s too young,’ one of them wrote. ‘She doesn’t look like a heroine,’ the other complained. Karan says he was “bowled over” by her screen test but put her through a weight loss regime before he “saw” her as his lead. Sidharth and Varun became believers much later and still kick themselves when reminded how hard they tried to get her out of the film.
Anupamaa
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