Salman Khan and the real story of Race 3’s script: Here are actor’s quotable quotes

No two ways about it: Salman Khan knows his audience well. The actor has emerged as one of Bollywood’s most bankable stars and has maintained a grip on the box office for over two decades. Yes, there have been ebbs at times but Salman has managed to balance them with enough highs. And he does that because – at the cost of repetition – he understands his audience, who love their ‘Bhai’ in a style all their own. So, when it came to Race 3 - a franchised established without him - he said ‘no’. Race 3 came back to him, this time with changes. At the trailer launch event on Tuesday, he revealed the story of the original story.

Why Salman said no to Race 3

“(The) Race 3 script was offered to me two years ago but I didn’t think I fit in the genre. It was a difficult genre for me to do, I wanted (a) few changes. I knew the genre of the film but I did not know where I will fit in the genre. I asked Ramesh Taurani (producer) to make some changes. Once that was done, I thought it would be actually a lot of fun to do this film,” Salman said at the trailer launch.

Salman made Race 3 ‘fun’ by adding HAHK to it

The next question, of course, is what changes were done to the script? Salman accepted that he hadn’t seen the first couple of Race films to get context. Instead, for Race 3, he added one of his earlier films to the mix. “Didn’t get time to watch them, but I knew the format. Just mixed a bit of Hum Aapke Hain Koun in it. In fact, I have never been a part of such a film.” Now you know why there are so many references to family in the new film.

How Race 3 is like Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan superhits

You can also expect a good old multi-starrer. Calling Race 3 a full blown ‘musical-action bonanza’, the actor said, “Earlier, we used to have a ‘musical action bonanza’ which hasn’t come in a while. A film with big scale music, emotion, action, youth kind, which you watch, whistle in the end and go back home happy. This is one of those films, which I’ve never done at all. This film has a vibe that earlier Bachchan saab, Dharmendraji used to do.”

Daisy Shah and Jacqueline Fernandez at Race 3 trailer launch.

Salman isn’t the star of Race 3

Salman may be headlining the film but he doesn’t believe he is the star of the film – ergo, the focus on family. “We didn’t go for the star value, we went with the characters. They should justify that. It doesn’t matter who’s doing well and who isn’t. Everyone has been treated equally in the film. Once you watch it, you’ll realise this,” Salman said.

The film also features Anil Kapoor, Jacqueline Fernandez, Daisy Shah, Saqib Salim and Bobby Deol among others. Directed by Remo D’Souza, the 3D action film will release on June 15.