Sushmita Senwho first worked with Salman Khan in the 1999 hit Biwi No 1, recently shared a delightful anecdote about her teenage admiration for the superstar. Long before she shared screen space with him, Sushmita was a huge fan of Salman, thanks to his debut film Maine Pyar Kiya.
In a conversation shared on Shipra Neeraj’s YouTube channel, Sushmita revealed that as a teenager, she spent all her pocket money buying Salman’s posters. “Whatever pocket money I got, I would buy Salman Khan posters from that, and in those days, Maine Pyar Kiya had released, so I even had the picture of the kabootar from that film because it was from a Salman Khan film,” she said.
Her love for Salman’s posters was so intense that she made sure to complete her homework on time to keep them safe. “My parents always said that if the homework is not done on time, we will remove those posters, so I would always finish my homework on time because those posters were sacrosanct. I was in love with this man,” she fondly recalled.
Salman’s role as Prem in Sooraj Barjatya’s Maine Pyar Kiya made him a household name and the quintessential boy-next-door. Years later, when Sushmita finally met Salman on the sets of Biwi No 1, they struck up a friendship, and she shared her teenage crush story with him.
“We became friends, and I told him this story. Then one day, he tells me that he saw a picture of mine as a 15-year-old, and there’s a poster of his film behind me. So I said I told you that I had a poster in my room. So he asked, ‘which was your favourite film?’ I said, ‘Maine Pyar Kiya.’ He went to David and said, ‘we have to make Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya with Sushmita Sen,’” Sushmita shared, smiling at the memory.
The 2005 film Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya, directed by David Dhawan, starred Salman Khan, Sushmita Sen, Katrina Kaif, and Sohail Khan. The film was a box office success, and their on-screen chemistry was loved by fans.