Raees director Rhul Dholakia revealed that he casted Pakistani actress Mahira Khan due to Gauri Khan’s mother’s suggestion in SRK starrer film ‘Raees’ (2017). Directed by Rahul Dholakia, the film marked Mahira Khan’s Bollywood debut.
Mahira Khan made her Bollywood debut alongside Shah Rukh Khan in 2017. In an interview, director Rahul Dholakia shared that how he discovered Mahira Khan to cast in ‘Raees’. The role eventually ended in the lap of Mahira Khan, who was co-incidentally in Mumbai during the casting process.
Rahul said, “We wanted an actor to play in 1980s Muslim girl. So, our first priority was to have an actress with good Hindi speaking skills, and if she had a little bit of an Urdu twang, even better. We also wanted our heroine to have an innocence.
And Shah Rukh was 50, so we wanted a heroine who is at least 30- something. Now, there are very few actresses (in India), who are in their 30s with good Hindi and an innocence. There was Deepika, Kareena and Anuska.
We had these three or four heroines who met the criteria. But now, the problem with them was that they are too expensive and the role is too small for them. Then we went through a complete list which included Sonam and Katrina. At the end of the day, we realized this wasn’t working for us. They were not really fitting the role. Shah Rukh Khan cannot romance with Alia Bhatt!”
Rahul continued, “Then Gauri [Khan]’s mom had seen Mahira and my mother had seen her in some Pakistani television show. They both said: ‘Yeh ladki achchi hai (This girl is good).’ Honey Tehran was casting for us.
I called him up and asked if he knew Mahira. He said, ‘She is here in Mumbai for some promotional work.’ He then said, ‘I will bring her tomorrow, you can audition her for the role’. We then auditioned her at the Excel office. After the audition, I declared, ‘I have found my Aasiya.”
Raees was a 2017 Bollywood crime drama directed by Rahul Dholakia, starring Shah Rukh Khan in the titular role, alongside Mahira Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. However, due to the ban on Pakistani artists in the Indian film Industry, Mahira Khan could not promote her film here. She has not appeared in any other Indian projects.