When Sriram Raghavan announced the cast of Merry Christmas with Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi, it piqued the audience’s interest owing to the uncommon casting. In a recent interview, Sriram shared his enthusiasm about the cast. Before choosing Vijay Sethupathi, Saif Ali Khan had shown interest in the role, but Sriram had to turn him down because he wanted to bring in someone new for the part.
During a chat with Pinkvilla, Sriram revealed that he “wanted a very unique kind of pairing because that’s the story requirement.” He said, “One should not get any baggage from either of them that what are these people about and so on.” After he locked Katrina in the lead role, he met Saif for the role of the male lead but later decided that he wouldn’t be right for the part.
Sriram said that Saif was “actually a little upset” later when he told him no. “At that time, I had not cast Vijay. I was just saying I want something fresh. I don’t know what I’m looking for.” Sriram and Saif have worked together in films like Ek Hasina Thi and Agent Vinod.
“I had met another actor who had liked the role also. Then I told him sorry I want to… because he had worked with her before,” the director added. Sriram was en route to Melbourne when he watched Vijay Sethupathi’s 2018 film ’96’. Both of them happened to be at the same event in Melbourne, providing an opportunity for them to meet. He recalled, “I asked him ‘Do you speak Hindi?’ He said, ‘I have worked in Dubai for three years. I said, ‘Okay, great’,”.
Opening up on casting Katrina and Vijay together, he said, “I said this is a very interesting and oddball combination that will make people curious. And I myself was curious because with any regular pairing, I could sort of imagine the movie. Here, I didn’t know myself so that excitement was there.”
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