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The day Shah Rukh was rejected!
India's Tom Cruise was considered for the lead role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Bombay Dreams
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Rediff Entertainment Bureau
Did you know that Shah Rukh Khan was the original choice for Andrew Lloyd Webber's West End musical Bombay Dreams?
Webber, creator of such superhit musicals as Cats, The Phantom Of The Opera and Starlight Express, came to India after hearing the musical score of Mani Ratnam's Dil Se.
So impressed was he with the songs, especially Chaiya Chaiya, picturised on Khan and Malaika Arora atop a moving train, that he decided to cast Khan in his latest musical.
Webber believed Khan sang the songs in the film and so wanted to start talks with 'India's Tom Cruise', as he is known in the international press. Finally, Webber retained the music composer A R Rahman for his $7 million production.
Meanwhile, Khan admitted to a section of the press that he was considered for the lead role in Webber's musical but was dropped, as his voice was 'dreadful'. Khan did try his hand at singing in Mansoor Khan's Josh (Apun bola).
Directed by Steven Pimlott, Bombay Dreams stars Preeya Kalidas, Raza Jaffrey, Raj Ghatak, Ayesha Dharker and Dalip Tahil. Over 2,000 people were auditioned in London, 200 for the key parts itself. The casting process took approximately three months.
Bombay Dreams is about a slum boy (Raza Jaffrey) who rises to become a big Bollywood star and subsequently gets disillusioned with the fame and glitz.
Though the musical started with poor initials in June, it picked up tremendously and is now one of the most popular musicals on London's West End.
Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, credited with providing the story idea, recently stated that Bombay Dreams has become 'a huge, huge hit', and the song, Shakalata baby (picturised on Ayesha Dharker), a rage.