Not Sidharth Malhotra, Salman Khan Wanted Someone Else To Star As Vikram Batra In “Shershaah”

Whoever has seen Shershaah would agree that Siddhar Malhortra did a marvelous job while playing out the part of Captain Vikram Batra.

Captain Vikram Batra was selected as the captain during the Kargil War. Under his captainship, the Indian Army was able to capture one of the toughest points and waved the Indian Flag from there. But Vikram was always the target for the Pakistani army and Captain Batra wasn’t able to see his team capturing the spot.

Now when his brother, Vishal Batra was asked about him he said that it is very hard for him to be his twin since the time he passed away. The family talks about Vikram everyday and realizes how much all of them miss him very dearly. Vikram’s girlfriend, Dimple did not marry anyone else after his death and lived a life of a widow even though they weren’t married.
When she was asked about Vikram she wishes to tell Vikram that he would have preferred to have him by her listening to people speak about him and his bravery and not from far away. But she still believes someday when the time is right, they’ll meet again.

Vishal Batra and the whole family was pretty happy as to how the story was about to be shooted. Not only that, back in 2016 when Sidharth went to talk to Vikram’s father about him, they chatted over 3 hours. That’s when they realized Sidharth is emotionally invested in this role and had high expectations from him.

The movie was extremely well pictographic, directed and plotted. The audience and the Batra family absolutely loved it and Siddhart delivered by far one of his best works this year.

But here is the main deal, the director Shershaah, Vishnuvardhan was approached by Salman Khan

Salman wanted his brother in law to play the role of Shershaah instead of Sidharth Malhotra. Though it would’ve been a good opportunity for him to get into the Bollywood limelight, but maybe the movie wouldn’t have been this good.

The main problem was, since Sidharth was already assigned to that role, dropping him just because of Salman’s new talent in the industry would be highly unprofessional. That’s why, his brother in law, Aayush Sharma was seen in the film, Loveyatri sharing the screen with Jahnvi Kapoor. The film was produced by Salman Khan. Aayush Sharma made his first Bollywood debut in that back in 2018.

He said all of this during an interview and Shabbir Boxwala said in an interview,

“Salman approached me at a stage when I was in talks with Junglee Pictures. He wanted Shershaah to be Aayush’s [Sharma] debut film, and wanted to partner with me on it. It would have been highly unethical to drop him for another actor. When Captain Batra’s family gave me the rights, it was a big moment for me. They showed immense trust in me, and I didn’t want to go wrong at any step. I explained [my predicament] to Salman, who was understanding. Aayush was sweet and sportingly said that playing a double role in his debut movie might be.”

He also added, He further explained how the project panned out.

“From Junglee Pictures, the film went to Dharma Productions [in 2019]. It didn’t take Karan Johar more than five minutes to say yes to the project. Director Dennis Lee came from Los Angeles to helm the film, but things didn’t work out. Vishnuvaradhan (director) was suggested by my writer Sandeep Shrivastava.”

Maybe this decision by Boxwala did avert a great cinematic disaster, who knows.