- Kajol, Karan Arjun, India, 1995. Difficult to turn down Salman Khan, one of the four King Khans ruling the Bollywood 90s. Yet she managed it.
- Karisma Kapoor, Dil To Pagal Hai, India, 1997. Lahore director Yash Chopra had a hard time finding his Nisha. Juhi, Kajol, Manisha Koirala, Shilpa Shetty and Raveena Tandon all turned him down. What did they know? Karisma won the Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award.
- Mahima Chaudhry, Pardes, India, 1997. Nagpur auteur Subhash Ghai liked Juhi but preferred Rita Chaudhry so much more that he changed her name to Mahima as M had always proved lucky for women debuting in his films – Madhuri Dixcit, Manisha Koirala…
- Madhuri Dixit, The Death Sentence: Mrityu Dand, India, 1999. Director Parakash Jha offered the lead to Chawla, but she not fancy such a serious film – about three women sentenced to death for speaking their minds in their male dominated society. It won Best Film at the Bangkok festival; Madhuri Dixit, and Shabana Azmi were best actress and support actress at the India’s Film Awards.
- Mahima Chaudhry, Baghban, India, 2003. The bad news: Julia could not play Salman Khan’s wife. The good news. She was pregnant – with her son, Arjun Mehta.
- Mahima Chaudhry, Film Star, India, 2005. And again.
- Mallika Sherawat, Dasavatharam, India, 2006. Planning the most roles played by an actor, Kamal Hassan’s choice of different actresses opposite his ten characters (Bhoomika, Vidya Balan, Nithya Das, Vasundhara Das, Meera Jasmine, Jyothika, Trisha Krishnan, Meena, Nadia Moidu, Kamalinee Mukherjee, Mumtaj, Nayanthara, Kiran Rathod, Sameera Reddy, Shriya Saran, Simran) was slashed to two: Asin and, in her first Tamil film, Mallika.
- Lara Dutta, Billu, India, 2009.Third Bollywood star in succession – after Tabu and Ameesha Patel – to pass on Bindiya, wife of the titular smalltime barber.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 8