He wanted to meet Farah Khan, but Shah Rukh Khan came and changed his life forever with just one question

It sounds like one of those film stories people don’t believe at first, but actor Zayed Khan says this is exactly how things happened for him before Main Hoon Na. What started as a simple attempt to get Farah Khan on board for a song turned into his big break, all because of one unexpected meeting with Shah Rukh Khan.

Zayed had just entered the industry and was trying to get Farah Khan to choreograph a track called Mohabbat Hai Mirchi. He has said in interview with Siddharth Kannan that he kept reaching out to her, even though she was busy and didn’t really know him at the time beyond being the son of Sanjay Khan and Zarine Khan.

“I was contacting Farah because I wanted her to direct ‘Mohabbat Hai Mirchi’. I think at that time she had already signed something else and was very stressed. She told me, ‘I will call you back.’ She didn’t even know who I was—just that I was Sanjay and Zarine’s son.”


He didn’t stop there. Zayed kept following up politely until one day she finally agreed to meet him.

“I’m a very persistent person. I kept calling her politely until she finally responded. One day, she picked up and said, ‘What do you want?’ I told her I just wanted a meeting. She gave me an address and asked me to come over.”

Walking into Shah Rukh Khan’s office

The meeting itself turned out to be nothing like he expected. Zayed recalled reaching a place filled with Shah Rukh Khan’s pictures, which left him confused about why he was even there.

“I saw his pictures everywhere and wondered why I was there. Does she work for him? Is she a fan? I was completely confused.”

Things got even more surprising when Farah cut him off mid-conversation.

“She came to me and said, ‘Listen, just shut up. Don’t say anything. I don’t want to do your song.’ I was like, ‘Then why am I here?’ She said, ‘Shah Rukh is coming, he will tell you.’”

The question that changed his career

Moments later, Shah Rukh Khan walked in, and the conversation took a turn Zayed never saw coming. “He said very sweetly, ‘Don’t listen to her. We are in the middle of casting the second lead in Main Hoon Na, and we were thinking of you.’”

Then came the question that stayed with him. “He asked me just one question—‘Can you act?’” Zayed’s reply came instantly, even surprising himself. “I said, ‘I am born to act.’ I don’t know where that came from—it was just youthful confidence. He had a slight smirk on his face.”

Looking back, Zayed also shared that the role of Lucky wasn’t originally meant for him. According to him, it had earlier gone to Hrithik Roshan, then Sohail Khan, and later Abhishek Bachchan, but things didn’t work out with any of them.

“Yaar, I think people know this story, but I was really lucky because the role was first given to Hrithik, and nothing happened there. Then the role was offered to Sohail Khan, but it didn’t stick there either. Then the role was offered to Abhishek (Bachchan), it didn’t stick there either. I don’t know what happened.”

The final confirmation

Even after that meeting, Zayed wasn’t sure if he had the role. The answer came in a very simple, almost filmi way. “She rolled down the window and simply said, ‘Send me your measurements, you’re going to be in my film.’” He later summed it up in his own words: “It was a pretty filmy moment.”

Released in 2004, Main Hoon Na went on to become a major success and marked Farah Khan’s directorial debut. The film featured Shah Rukh Khan in the lead, with Zayed playing Lucky, alongside Amrita Rao and Sushmita Sen.

Zayed has also said that despite early warnings from others about working with a big star, Shah Rukh Khan was supportive on set and even helped him through difficult scenes.