Salman Khan jokes about ‘casting couch’, says that’s how he was cast in God Father with Chiranjeevi: ‘Only one person apart from me slept…’

He said, “See, people want to go to Hollywood, I want to go to the south. The thing is that once we all start working together, just imagine the numbers that we’ll have. People watch it here, people watch it in the south, you have all the theatres. You know fans go and watch me, my fans become his fans, his fans become my fans, so just everyone grows and grows and grows, the numbers become very large. People talk about 300-400 crores, like this if we all get together then we’ll cross 3000-4000 crores.”

Salman then shared how he was cast for GodFather. He laughed and said, “Casting couch does exist. We were doing a commercial together of Thumps Up in Thailand. We both flew down together. The only person apart from me who slept on my couch is Chiru garu (laughs). We landed at about 1.30 – 2.00 am and then we sat and spoke and he had to catch a flight, I told him to go to the bedroom and sleep and he said ‘I will sleep on the couch’. Now, how to say I sleep on the couch? So, only one person apart from me who slept on my couch is Chiru garu… this is casting couch and because of this I was cast in this film. He told me there is a small role in this film, I told him, if you make me stand behind you it is fine. He said ‘I will give you a noble role’. And that’s what he did.”

Chiranjeevi then shared how he approached Salman for the film. He shared that he “requestd” Salman to watch Lucifer and decide if he wanted to take up the role as he did not want to pressurise the Sultan star but Salman was instantly keen. “He said don’t request, tell me,” recalled Chiranjeevi. “All these things happened in ten minutes. At that time, I felt this film is going to be a hit. I felt very happy he was giving (dates) whenever we asked because of other problems we could not make use of his dates. He is such as co-operative (man). There is a heartfelt thing and I am indebted to lifetime to you Sallu,” he said.

Chiranjeevi also shared that Salman did not charge a penny for this role. “When my producers went to hand over the big cheque to him, the manager went inside and at the same speed, he came out and said I don’t want to take this. He said tha the producer wants to buy my love and affection towards Chiranjeevi with this price. I am doing it for love and affection and he is showering that on. Who else has big heart than him?” he said. Salman added, “It is not a question about heart. It is a question of love for cinema that you have, I have.”

Here, Salman was also asked how he looks at doing double hero and ensemble films, and if there are any ego clashes that stops Hindi film heroes from doing such movies. The Bigg Boss host said that there has never been an ego clash as such, but there can be creative differences. He said, “All of us have done earlier double or triple hero films and these things have never happened apart from one or two films and that also would not be the actor’s fault but maybe of director’s fault because of what he has narrated and if he is being partial. I have worked with Sanju (Sanjay Dutt), Jackie (Shroff), Sunny (Deol), Shah Rukh (Khan), Aamir (Khan), Saif (Saif Ali Khan), Aki (Akshay Kumar), I have never had this problem ever. I don’t know who you are talking about, give examples. It all depends on the script, if you do not like the actor but you like the script, either don’t do it or start liking the actor.”

Chiranjeevi then gave the example of his son Ram Charan’s RRR with Jr NTR. He said, “Ram Charan and NTR did (RRR) they did not have hassles like this, they love each other. Like, he said, it depends on the director, who is supposed to balance and satisfy their ego.”

God Father, directed by Mohan Raja is the Telugu remake of the 2019 Malayalam film Lucifer. It is scheduled to release in theatres on October 5.