Beyond The Clouds releases this Friday. Some months ago, Deepika Padukone was seen in the garb of a poor woman at dhobi ghaat, doing screen tests for the film.

However, eventually, Ishaan Khatter and Malvika Mohanan were selected for the film, reports the Bollywoodlife.com.

Iranian filmmaker, Majid Majidi, who has directed the film, has now revealed as to what made him not choose Deepika.

He said, ‘You know, Deepika has great potential in Bollywood. In those days, she came, we were together, and we made those costume tests. We just wanted to see how the costumes looked in such situations. She accepted the offer to do that for us and I appreciate that. But unfortunately, for different reasons, we couldn’t carry the collaboration forward.

At the beginning, it was more of a producer’s suggestion to use one star in the film. But one of the reasons why we couldn’t collaborate was her age.

My character is 20 years old and it was difficult to make anyone look younger with makeup. Also, since we were about to shoot in real locations, it would have been difficult to shoot with Deepika around as she is a star.

In future, if my stories demand her, we may collaborate.’ Now, we think, that’s a completely valid concern because Deepika’s fan following is pretty huge here.

Majidi had earlier revealed to Mumbai Mirror, ‘I didn’t want to work with Bollywood superstars. I always wanted to shoot at different locations in Mumbai, because places are also characters in my films.

But even for one audition, It was difficult with Deepika Padukone as there was a large crowd and even more curiosity. That was the reason for not wanting to cast a superstar.’ 

According to reports, Deepika, as a mark of respect to the director, did the look test of the film. However, even when she was doing the look test, she had made it clear that she would say yes to the film only once she had heard or read the final draft of the script. 

Unfortunately, Deepika Padukone didn’t like what she heard as the final draft. It’s not something she was looking at this stage of her career. So she decided not to be part of the project.

We wonder what it would have been like if Deepika was part of Beyond The Clouds.