Taal turns 23: Anil Kapoor says Govinda was first choice for his role, Danny Boyle offered him film because of it

Taal was released in 1999 and starred actors Anil Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Akshaye Khanna in lead roles.

On 1999 film Taal's 23rd anniversary on Saturday, actor Anil Kapoor shared a bunch of photos from the film's set. The photos featured him, Aishwarya Rai and filmmaker Subhash Ghai. Sharing the pictures, Anil recalled that it was his performance in Taal that bagged him a role in Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire.

Anil Kapoor shared pics from the sets of his 1999 film Taal.

Sharing the pictures, Anil wrote, “23 years of Taal! I will forever be grateful to have been a part of this iconic movie. In many ways, I was destined to do it, as my role was first offered to Govinda but ultimately came to me. It was Taal that Danny Boyle saw and my performance in it that made him offer me Slumdog Millionaire, I thank my lucky stars for the love and support of the phenomenally talented showman @subhashghai1 saab and for 4 hugely successful milestone films with him."

The first photo is from Anil's solo scene from the film. The next picture featured Aishwarya Rai and Anil Kapoor. The third one is the poster of Taal, which also features Akshaye Khanna, besides Aishwarya and Anil. In the last photo, Anil and filmmaker Subhash Ghai are looking at each other as they got clicked.

Actor Raj Singh Chaudhary commented, “What an amazing performance sir.” Actor Tisca Chopra wrote, “Legend.” One fan called the film a ‘masterpiece’ and another one simply said, ‘best film of all times.’

Taal, musical drama starred Aishwarya, Anil, Akshaye in lead roles and Amrish Puri and Alok Nath in supporting roles. The film was later dubbed in Tamil and was titled Thaalam. For the film, Anil Kapoor, AR Rahman, Alka Yagnik and Anand Bakshi each bagged a Filmfare Award in the year 2000.