Flop films are like skeletons in the cupboard no actor wants to acknowledge. But when it comes to certified hits, anybody who is somebody in the industry is ready to claim he was considered for the project.

Devdas is one film most actors would have wanted to be associated with. Did you know that for the role of Chunilal, when negotiations fell through with Govinda, Manoj Bajpai, Anil Kapoor and others, some other big names cropped up -Salman Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Kanwaljeet and Jackie Shroff, who eventually played the role of Devdas` friend. One actor who will never brag about it is the talented but diffident Akshaye Khanna, who looks askance while admitting that he was very much in the running. "Yes, I was called but let`s not talk about it," is all one gets from him.

We may not know what the fate of the film would have been had Khanna played the character, but the actor who did the eponymous role must have heaved a sigh of relief that he didn`t. Right, Shahrukh?