Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was originally considered to play the lead role in Yash Chopra’s 1993 film Darr. In an exclusive interview with Bollywood Hungama, costume designer Neeta Lulla revealed that Aishwarya had a look test for the film, but ultimately couldn’t take on the role because she was preparing to compete in the Miss World pageant.
“I met Aishwarya for the first time in late Yash (Chopra) ji’s office, where he was contemplating casting her for Darr,” Lulla said. “I don’t think many people know this. So we did a look test of sorts and he called me and said let’s do a look test with her. When I saw her, Yash ji and I discussed and we said she’s beautiful. But he said maybe it won’t work out because she is going for the Miss World Pageant and she went away and that happened.”
Rai ultimately went on to win the Miss World title in 1994, and her career in Bollywood took off shortly thereafter. She made her film debut in Mani Ratnam’s 1997 film Iruvar, and has since starred in a number of successful films, including Devdas, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, and Dhoom 2.
In the interview, Lulla also spoke about designing Rai’s costumes for Jeans, a 1998 film directed by Shankar. Lulla continued, “She said I’m doing this film called Jeans and I’d like you to design the whole film for me and I did. And working with Shankar was an absolute delight.”
Lulla said that she and Shankar would meet every week to discuss the looks for the film. “I used to meet Shankar every week to understand the looks and everything and that was the day and age where it was not about getting the entire script, you get one scene at a time, one portion of the song at a time and within those 10 days, I would travel out of the country to pick up fabrics come back and start stitching it because that was also the time when brands were not available in the country,” Lulla said.
Lulla said that she was excited by the challenge of designing for a larger-than-life film like Jeans. “So you needed to give something that was larger than life and Shankar wanted something that you’ve never seen before and for me, that’s what excites me about cinema, that larger-than-life aspect and trying to get something that is visually a treat to watch,” Lulla said. “That process was something else. I mean I’ll never forget it and yeah working on different techniques with your techniques on the garments.”
Lulla said that she was proud of the work she did on Jeans, and that she believes it helped to make the film a success. “I can only attribute this to the fact that I have studied fashion and it was possible,” Lulla said. “So it was a sort of saucing, technicalities, visualising, everything involved and put into one and that’s how the magic of dream happened, Jeans happened.”
Also Read: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan on why Hindi cinema is not offering her in-depth roles: “That’s a silent question I think everybody normally ends up asking”
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