The 1995 film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge proved to be a turning point in the lives of the people who made it. The film established Shah Rukh Khan as the ‘King of Romance’ in the Indian film industry and the film’s director Aditya Chopra established himself as a bankable filmmaker. But things would have been different if Yash Chopra had not stopped his son Aditya from casting Hollywood star Tom Cruise in the lead role in the romantic drama.

In the book, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge: The Making of a Blockbuster, author-film critic Anupama Chopra mentions that Aditya conceived DDLJ as a cross-cultural love story between an American boy and an Indian girl. Hence, he wanted Tom Cruise in the lead role. However, his father, filmmaker Yash Chopra, asked him to rework the story and make the characters non-resident Indians.

Kajol, who played Simran in the film, had confirmed that Aditya wanted to cast the Mission Impossible star in DDLJ.

“Initially he wanted to cast Tom Cruise in the movie. It was on his wish list. Every director has a wish list, where you put the actors you want and then you come back down to earth, ‘Okay, let’s take our country’s hero normally“… (let’s cast an actor from our country),” Kajol told Midday.

When asked to imagine romancing Tom Cruise in DDLJ, Kajol immediately dismissed the idea, saying, “If it was Tom Cruise, on the other side it would be Meg Ryan.”

DDLJ is a love story starring Raj (played by Shah Rukh Khan) and Simran (Kajol) in the lead roles. It is the story of two Indians holidaying in Europe who meet and fall in love. They want to get married but face opposition from Simran’s father, played brilliantly by the late actor Amrish Puri.

The film also featured Mandira Bedi, Parmeet Sethi, Satish Shah, Anupam Kher, Farida Jalal, Pooja Ruparel and others.