Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Deewana’ has been marked as one of the iconic films in his career, however, not many know that it was first offered to Armaan Kohli and later went to SRK, which eventually made him a quite big star.
Talking about the same, Armaan Kohli once said in an interview, “If we start thinking about the past and what we could’ve done, our life will be hell. So generally I don’t sit and regret and think about, ‘Oh, I should have done that, if I had done that then this would have happened’. I wish I had thought that way. I would have been somewhere else, for sure. But, as I said, there is no regret. If I lost Deewana, Mr Shah Rukh Khan got Deewana, and he’s the superstar of the country. I’m pretty okay with that.”
However, adding that it isn’t just Deewana but many other films that he lost, “Every film that I’ve left, 80% were super-hits’ big, big superstars have come into the industry because of that.”
However, with that, once SRK too admitted that he ‘overacted’ in Deewana. In an old throwback interview, he said, “I’m glad the film has done so well…But I don’t think I’ve contributed in any way to its success. My performance was awful loud, vulgar and uncontrolled. I overacted terribly and I take full responsibility for it… I am my worst critic and when I saw myself on the screen I was appalled. Isn’t it amazing that people have liked me in the film? Perhaps that’s because I am a fresh face. It’s not a performance I’d care to repeat or remember.”
Later in Yaaron Ki Baarat in 2016, he held Armaan responsible for making him a star, saying, “Armaan Kohli is responsible for me being a star. He featured on the Deewana poster with the late Divya Bharti. I still have that poster. Thank you for making me a star,” as quoted in Hindustan Times.