Karan Johar tried to ‘Sabotage’ Alia Bhatt in Kapoor & Sons?

Karan Johar has revealed that he attempted to sabotage Alia Bhatt’s casting in Kapoor & Sons.

Kapoor & Sons was released in 2016 and starred Alia Bhatt alongside Sidharth Malhotra and Fawad Khan.

It was directed by Shakun Batra and also featured Rajat Kapoor, Ratna Pathak Shah and the late Rishi Kapoor.

The film was produced under Karan’s banner Dharma Productions.

Karan revealed that he had a one-on-one meeting with the actress, where he asked her not to do the film, due to the length of the role.

Explaining how he tried to sabotage Alia’s casting, Karan revealed:

“I tried to sabotage her casting because I had a one-on-one with Alia and I said, ‘Listen, you don’t have to do every Dharma film. You don’t like it, you don’t do it because the part is really nothing’.

“She was like, ‘Yeah, I know but I love Shakun (Batra), I’ll just hear it for him, he’s a good friend’.

“I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, but don’t do it. It’s fine because it’s called Kapoor & Sons and you’re not a Kapoor in the film’.”

Alia went ahead with the script and returned to Karan, telling him that she decided to star in the film.

Karan continued: “She heard (the script) and she comes to my room and says, ‘I really want to do this film, I really love the script, I don’t care about my role’.

“I thought more power to her that she actually didn’t see the footage, she didn’t see the length of the role, she just saw the film and I wish all actors in our industry thought like that.”

Karan Johar went on to say that he had reached out to six top actors for the role of Rahul Kapoor, but none of the actors agreed to take on the role.

The role eventually went to Fawad Khan.

Karan had previously spoken about his dilemma in 2018. He had said:

“Yes, I had offered Fawad’s part to six different actors and no one did it.”

“No matter what reasons they gave, I felt they were afraid of playing a homosexual man on screen.

“Having said that, they had a reason and I didn’t judge them for it.”

Karan Johar was responsible for launching Alia Bhatt.

The actress made her Bollywood debut in the 2012 film Student of the Year alongside Sidharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan.