Mumbai: Producer Ratan Jain gives us the back story about the casting of Josh. He said, “This is a big story. If I were to dive into it, people would derive different meanings from it. When we first started, it was Aamir and Shah Rukh. I had recommended Shah Rukh, and Mansoor Khan had recommended Aamir. I knew Aamir — we had done Akele Hum Akele Tum together.”
Ratan Jain said, “We had decided that Aamir would play Chandrachur’s character and Shah Rukh would play Max’s character. Mansoor told me in passing that Aamir wants to play Max’s role, to which I said Shah Rukh won’t do it. We had a meeting in this very room. There were no table chairs but a baithak setup at that time. Shahrukh arrived for the meeting since he was the one who suggested that we should do a joint narration. Before that, Mansoor hinted to him that Aamir wants to play Max. He got up, put on his shoes and said, “I’m not doing the film,” and left. Mansoor tried to convince me to do it with Aamir, I said no.”
He added, “After that, we approached Salman and signed him. Aamir and Shah Rukh both left, and the film paused. We signed Salman for the same project. We tried to make it happen with him. Due to many reasons — Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, which was offered to him at that time — things didn’t work out. And you should know here, Aishwarya Rai was always part of the project.”
Ratan Jain again went back to Shah Rukh Khan. He said, “I told him that I don’t feel that Salman wants to do this film, and he’s not saying no to the film directly. Shah Rukh asked for a couple of days to think about it. I told him that he has to do it, it’s about my integrity. Shah Rukh said, Yes I want to do it, but the dates for Yes Boss and Josh will mix and clash. That’s on you to figure out. That’s when we announced the film. It shook the market. If it was someone other than him, they wouldn’t have done the film.”