It was 2004 when Farah Khan teamed up with her close friend Shah Rukh Khan for her directorial debut, Main Hoon Na. Around the same time, Zayed Khan was persistently trying to get Farah to choreograph a song for him in his debut film. Little did he know that his efforts would eventually land him a film with Shah Rukh Khan. Recalling the incident in an interview with Zoom, Zayed said, “I was contacting Farah because I wanted her to direct ‘Mohabbat Hai Mirchi’. I think at that time she had already signed something else and was very stressed. She told me, ‘I will call you back.’ She didn’t even know who I was—just that I was Sanjay and Zarine’s son.”
Shah Rukh Khan asked Zayed Khan if he could act
“I’m a very persistent person,” he added. “I kept calling her politely until she finally responded. One day, she picked up and said, ‘What do you want?’ I told her I just wanted a meeting. She gave me an address and asked me to come over.”
Zayed then found himself at Shah Rukh Khan’s office in Bandra. “I saw his pictures everywhere and wondered why I was there. Does she work for him? Is she a fan? I was completely confused,” he recalled. That confusion soon turned into a life-changing moment. “She came to me and said, ‘Listen, just shut up. Don’t say anything. I don’t want to do your song.’ I was like, ‘Then why am I here?’ She said, ‘Shah Rukh is coming, he will tell you.’ Then I saw this very suave person walk in. It was my first time meeting him—I was a big fan.”
Speaking about that meeting, Zayed shared, “He said very sweetly, ‘Don’t listen to her. We are in the middle of casting the second lead in Main Hoon Na, and we were thinking of you.’ I was stunned. Then he asked me just one question—‘Can you act?’” Zayed replied instinctively, “I said, ‘I am born to act.’ I don’t know where that came from—it was just youthful confidence. He had a slight smirk on his face.” Zayed was eventually cast in the film after Farah saw some of the footage from his debut film.
A dancer collapsed during Main Hoon Na song, but Farah kept shooting
Zayed also addressed reports of a disagreement with Farah on set. “We were shooting on celluloid, and the camera was panning towards me. We had already done multiple takes. Dancing at high altitude is tough—oxygen is low and you’re exhausted. During one take, a dancer suddenly collapsed. I stopped and tried to help him. Someone even suggested we continue dancing around him, which I refused.”
“At that point, I said ‘cut’, and Farah immediately said, ‘Nobody says cut on my set.’ I told her, ‘This guy is in trouble.’ She warned me, ‘Next time you say cut, I’m going to chop you off,’” he recalled. Despite the intensity, Zayed said the atmosphere on set was warm and lively. “We were like a family. Every weekend, we’d gather and mimic people for hours. It was madness, but it helped everyone bond. There was never a dull moment.”
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‘Shah Rukh Khan is extremely competitive’
He also spoke fondly about working with Shah Rukh Khan. “He never interfered in my process. It was a very pleasant experience. He’s extremely competitive though—we used to play FIFA for hours, from 7 to 11. I always say I was better than him, but he’d never agree. If he lost, he’d keep playing until he won again.”
In the film, SRK and Zayed played half-brothers who have the same father. While SRK’s Ram is aware of their relationship, Zayed’s Lucky gets to know about it towards the end of the film.
Abhishek Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan were also considered for Lucky
When the interviewer asked if it ever came up that Abhishek Bachchan was supposed to play Lucky, Zayed expressed gratitude for the opportunity. “It never even came up that someone else was supposed to play Lucky. I feel truly blessed. I have heard names like Hrithik Roshan being considered, but for me, this was life-changing.”
About Main Hoon Na
Main Hoon Na was the first film produced under Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment. The film also starred Suniel Shetty, Amrita Rao, Sushmita Sen, Boman Irani, Bindu, among others.
