Shah Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra were the first choices to play the lead roles in the 2014 film 2 States before Arjun Kapoor and Alia Bhatt made the cut, author Chetan Bhagat revealed in an interview on Monday.

The romantic comedy, based on Chetan’s popular novel of the same name, stars Arjun Kapoor and Alia Bhatt, with supporting roles by Amrita Singh, Ronit Roy, Revathi, and Shiv Kumar Subramaniam.

Chetan revealed that when Vishal Bhardwaj was initially directing the film, Shah Rukh and Priyanka were considered for the roles. “There was a time Vishal Bharadwaj was going to make it. There was a time when Shah Rukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan, and Priyanka Chopra’s names were talked about,” the 51-year-old author said during an interview with Pinkvilla.

When Arjun and Alia were finally cast after the directing duties shifted from Bhardwaj to Abhishek Varman, Chetan was a bit doubtful as the film was supposed to have big names. “To be honest, when they said, there is a new director, and it's Arjun Kapoor who had one movie and Alia Bhatt who had one movie, Student Of The Year, I was like ‘okay’, but this is not what was discussed,” he said.

Despite the initial disappointment, Chetan was glad as the young actors made the movie “fresh”. He added that he was surprised by their performances.

“If it were older actors, I don't know, maybe they would have done a great job. But it was very surprising,” he added.

Chetan also mentioned that after every actor turned down offers for Kai Po Che, Sushant Singh Rajput, Rajkummar Rao and Amit Sadh played the lead roles and turned the film immortal.

The popular author called Kai Po Che the best adaptation of his novel.