With Student Of The Year (2012), Karan Johar launched the careers of Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan and Sidharth Malhotra. While Bhatt is easily the biggest female star in Hindi cinema today, Johar has revealed, in the upcoming episode of Koffee with Karan 8, how Malhotra and Dhawan tried to dissuade him from casting her in the campus drama.

The host tells his guests, “The first time that Alia walked in, both of you sent me messages saying you can’t cast her. One of you said she is too young. Three months post that, for a photoshoot, I remember she stood quietly and didn’t look at either of you. Either she was conscious or shy, because you both already knew me and she didn’t know me at all. We did the photoshoot and I knew at the first shot [that she would be a star].”

Johar also shared that the two actors kept sending him images of other girls, hoping that he would cast one of them instead of Bhatt.

In the Disney+ Hotstar offering, Johar walks down memory lane with his guests, remembering how Malhotra almost broke Dhawan’s nose while filming an action scene. The host recalls, “I remember Alia was screaming loudly when I went to the hospital, but Varun’s family was only worried about Sid. They were like, ‘Yeh Varun ki galti hogi.’”

To this, Dhawan jokingly adds, “I think they wanted to hit me for a while.”