Karan Johar’s 2006 hit romantic drama Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna continues to be one of the most polarising films of both his and Shah Rukh Khan’s career. The film, which completed 20 years since its release earlier this year, revolved around an extramarital relationship between two married individuals — Dev (Shah Rukh) and Maya (Rani Mukerji). Kajol turned down the role of Maya because she didn’t think it was her cup of tea. The role eventually went to her cousin Rani Mukerji. Johar recently revealed that Shah Rukh, like Kajol, also had reservations about the film, particularly his character.During the shoot of Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, Shah Rukh apporaced Karan and confessed, “I don’t know how to make myself likeable.” “You’re Shah Rukh Khan! You have everyone at hello,” Karan told him, referencing Renée Zellweger’s famous line to Tom Cruise from Cameron Crowe’s 1996 Hollywood romantic comedy Jerry Maguire.“‘How can you not love Shah Rukh Khan? You are love,’” Karan recalled telling the actor, while speaking at the Marrakech Film Festival. Calling Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna a “complicated film to shoot”, the filmmaker said that it was one of the first big-budget films in mainstream Hindi cinema to deal with the topic of infidelity. “For Shah Rukh Khan, who was the perfect lover, brother, husband, and son, to go out of the boundary of his marriage and have a love affair, we didn’t know an audience would accept that character or relationship,” Karan said. Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna turns 20.Karan Johar called every day on the set a “challenge” for both him and Shah Rukh Khan. “I didn’t know how to justify them. They’re both really grey, flawed characters, and remain flawed right till the end of the film. So, it was a leap we were taking. In retrospect, I’m happy I did. But back then, there was a lot of chatter around why I’ve gone mad, lost the plot, making a movie like this, and done this to Shah Rukh Khan,” recalled Karan.Karan also recalled receiving a ‘lecture’ from another movie star, who accused him of endorsing infidelity. “How can I endorse something which’s already sold out? Infidelity exists in everybody’s lives. We may brush it under the carpet, but it exists. This film doesn’t brush it under the carpet, it addresses it. I said, ‘I’m happy and proud of it. Thank you for your advice, but I won’t be taking it,'” said the filmmaker.Why Karan Johar made Kabhi Alvida Naa KehnaKaran Johar further said he would never have been able to make Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna had his father, veteran producer Yash Johar, still been alive. Yash died of cancer in 2004, a couple of years before the film released. “My father, in many ways, was my conscience keeper and moral compass. He’d never allow me to direct this film because he was a very traditional, conservative man, and held Shah Rukh in the highest esteem.” A still from Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna.“You suffer with the pain and loss of a loved one, but you also feel that governance is not there. So, I decided to break all boundaries and barriers, and make what I want to. So, it was more about me flying with my vision, as opposed to being bound by a conservative voice, which my father would’ve been, and I’d have listened to him. So, it was just me growing up. I felt grown up at the end of this experience,” added the filmmaker.Story continues below this adKaran shared that while many thought Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna was “ahead of its time”, he feels it would cause even more turbulence if it were released today. “I don’t think our audiences are still ready for this kind of topic even 20 years later,” he said. The filmmaker recalled seeing a couple walk out of a theatre after realising that the scene in which Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukerji’s characters sleep together wasn’t a “dream sequence.”Also Read: Neem Karoli Baba biopic Hanuman Ansh earns 6x of Kareena Kapoor’s Daayra“There was a lot of polarisation back then, and there continues to be I’m sure. But it’s always better when cinema can start a conversation, as opposed to you watching and being indifferent to it. When people used to come and say ‘I loved it’ or ‘I hated it’, I’d ask, ‘How come you hated it? Did it bother you at some personal level?’ They’d say, ‘Umm… I don’t know what to say.’ You can’t hate a film unless it’s struck a chord in some way. And I believe films should contribute to pop culture conversations,” added Karan.