Aayush Sharma says he, wife Arpita Khan asked Salman Khan to leave Antim: ‘I didn’t want him to do the film’

Speaking with News18, Aayush said, “At the beginning of the process of making this film, I was anxious about the fact that he is in the film. There are going to be multiple notions about it including the fact that we are a family, he is making this film to help me in my career and also to spark another conversation on nepotism. Initially, I was against the idea of Salman bhai being a part of Antim.”

Aayush added, “I didn’t want him to do the film and I told him that. In fact, I went to all the people in the family to convince him not to do it. It was also because I was doing something completely different from LoveYatri and also the other thing was with his presence, whether I’d be able to do justice to the film and match up to his hysteria.”

However, Salman was determined that he wanted to be a part of the film. “Salman told me, ‘Aayush you need to figure out how you do justice to your character and which is all that matters. You need to convince people why you raised your hand on me in the film.’ It was a huge challenge and I was quite apprehensive about his presence. I remember when we announced the film, there was a bit of trolling for me saying, ‘We don’t want Aayush in the film.’ When I told him, he said there are hardly 5000 tweets and if they don’t see the film, it won’t matter,” Aayush said.  He added that even his wife Arpita requested Salman to step down, but he refused and was keen on doing the film.

Directed by Mahesh Manjrekar, Antim marks Salman and Aayush’s first film together. Salman plays a righteous police officer and Aayush plays a gangster. Aayush made his Bollywood debut with the film, Loveyatri in 2018.