When Shah Rukh Khan said, 'Remove JD Chakravarthy and put me in Satya': JD recalls an old conversation with the Jawan actor

Popular actor JD Chakravarthy recently recalled an interesting conversation he had with the Baadshah of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan, years ago. In an interview to ETimes, the actor reminisced the time when he had received a call from director Mani Ratnam and Shah Rukh Khan had taken over the call.

The incident happened on the eve of Satya’s (1998) release. After watching the film, Mani Ratnam, had called JD and stated that someone wanted to talk to him. When the person on the other end took over the call, he asked what JD would do if Satya failed at the box office. When JD enquired about the person’s identity, it was revealed as Shah Rukh Khan. A miffed JD had then stated that he wasn’t as intelligent and talented as Shah Rukh Khan and asked the star actor what would he do if were in the same position. To which Shah Rukh Khan replied that he would remove JD Chakravarthy from the film, and replace himself as the character.

JD explained that he didn’t quite understand Shah Rukh’s point. SRK then replied that if he were to do the character, he would have ended up messing it up. That’s when JD understood that SRK was joking and praising his work in the film. “You are so, bloody good man. And the film is so good, “ SRK is said to have told JD. The Satya actor revealed that he loved the way Shah Rukh praised his work.

Satya was considered one of the landmark films in the Hindi film industry, and was directed and produced by Ram Gopal Varma. The film was written by Saurabh Shukla and Anurag Kashyap. The star cast included JD Chakravarthy, Manoj Bajpayee, Paresh Rawal, Urmila Matondkar, Aditya Srivatsava and Saurabh Shukla to name a few. Music for the film was by Vishal Bharadwaj and Sandeep Chowta. Cinematography was by Gerard Hooper and Mazhar Kamran and editing was by Apurva Asrani and Bhanodaya. The film inspired several sequels.