The intriguing trailer of Merry Christmas dropped a few days back, and all eyes are on the oddball pairing of Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi. Directed by Sriram Raghavan, the romantic thriller explores a chance encounter between two strangers as their night together steadily transforms from a delirious romance to a nightmare. While Katrina and Vijay’s quirky chemistry has been the talking point, did you know Sethupathi wasn’t the first choice for Merry Christmas?
Find out which popular actor was first offered Merry Christmas before Vijay Sethupathi
As revealed by Sriram Raghavan himself, before Vijay Sethupathi, Saif Ali Khan was the first choice to star opposite Katrina Kaif in Merry Christmas. In a recent interview, the filmmaker was asked how he went about casting Katrina and Vicky in the movie, to which Sriram spoke about how Kaif and he were discussing Merry Christmas post-Andhadhun.
Sriram Raghavan believed Katrina was a fabulous choice as the female lead of Merry Christmas. While talking about the male lead, the director recalled, “I wanted a very unique kind of a pairing because that’s the story requirement. One should not get any baggage from either of them… So I had met another actor who had liked the role also, but then I told him sorry, because you have worked with her (Katrina Kaif) before,” according to Pinkvilla and Hindustan Times.
Katrina Kaif prodded Sriram Raghavan to disclose who the actor was, and the filmmaker revealed it to be Saif Ali Khan: “Yeah, you can ask me. I can tell you. It was Saif Ali Khan. So I had met him and he was actually a little upset later when I told him no. But at that time, I had not cast Vijay. I was just saying no, I want something fresh, I don’t know what I am looking for.”
Eventually, after watching Vijay Sethupathi in ‘96, it was at a film festival in Melbourne when Sriram Raghavan met and discussed working with the actor. When Sriram asked Vijay if he speaks Hindi, the Jawan star shared that he had worked in Dubai for three years. Just like everyone, Raghavan was also curious and excited about the “very interesting and oddball combination” of Katrina Kaif and Sethupathi because he himself couldn’t imagine the pair in a film together. The movie Merry Christmas was released theatrically on January 12, 2024.
