Gadar filmmaker Anil Sharma says he never offered the film to Govinda: He perhaps misunderstood that I wanted to cast him

Gadar Ek Prem Katha has completed 2 decades since its release and the film is still as memorable as ever. Sunny Deol and Ameesha Patel brought this cross-border romance to life under Anil Sharma’s direction and the movie ultimately became an iconic product of the new millennium.

 The filmmaker in recent interviews while celebrating the success of the project revealed that he had approached many actresses in Bollywood to be a part of the film before Ameesha but it never worked out, but he maintained that Sunny was his first and only choice to play Tara Singh.

When confronted about Govinda being offered the project before Sunny Deol, Anil Sharma told RJ Sidharth Kannan, "This is an outright lie. People talk. The truth of the matter is that I was working with Govinda on Maharaja. During Maharaja I told him the story of Gadar. He perhaps misunderstood that I wanted to cast him in the film, and that's how the rumours originated."

Talking about collaborating with Govinda he further said, "I would work with him in a heartbeat, on not one but 10 films, but I never wanted to do Gadar with him. Sunny Deol was the first and last choice for the central role. And as far as the heroines are concerned, I had approached several big actresses of the time; Neelam was definitely not one of them. They had all some problem or the other. Some didn't like the story, others didn't like us. Some had their own personal agendas, some didn't want to do period films."

In another interview, Anil Sharma revealed that he had narrated the film to Govinda as they worked on Maharaja together and said that the actor was scared hearing his vision and wondered how a film of Gadar’s scale would materialize.