When Amitabh Bachchan defended Aishwarya Rai after she was replaced Kareena Kapoor in Heroine

Kareena Kapoor’s characters have withstood the test of time, many of them effortlessly passing into culture. Although Kareena has frequently said that her performance in Heroine didn’t receive the credit it deserved, it’s interesting to note that she wasn’t always the front-runner for the role of Mahi Arora. 
When word of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s pregnancy reached the producers of Heroine, they were forced to replace the actress who had signed on to play Mahi Arora in the movie. On his personal blog, director Madhur Bhandarkar discussed replacing Aishwarya and said that he didn’t want to sabotage his dream project, on which he had spent about one and a half years of hard work and sweat. 

The 2012 film Bhandarkar provides an insider’s view of Bollywood before abruptly making a U-turn into a tunnel of despair and unsettling facts.  “This is no normal film which can be shot in a couple of locations with a handful of actors. Heroine is a film that entails a huge canvas of around 40 locations in which heavy-duty scenes involving massive crowds are to be shot, adult content, the regular song and dance sequences and heavy-duty scenes involving hardcore physical exertion.” he wrote. 
Bhandarkar said that when he learned of the condition of his then-lead actress Aishwarya, he shuddered and wondered what if she were the one to sustain an injury on the sets? He said he would have felt terrible guilt for the rest of his life if anything had happened to Aishwarya under his watch. “The lead actress was required to smoke on screen….but even if she chose not to smoke for the camera. There are other actors smoking in the same frame entailing to passive smoking which would prove detrimental to a pregnant woman’s health. The truth was hidden from us.”
Further, the filmmaker said that after finding out about Aishwarya’s pregnancy, he was “in a state of total shock and depression.” He recalled that with 65 days of filming left, the actress in question would be 6-7 months pregnant, which would change her portrayal of a diva and seriously jeopardise the plot. “The entire crisis would have taken a humongous shape had the truth not being unveiled when it was..” 

Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya’s father-in-law and actor, was not pleased with the producers’ choice and questioned the entire system. 
According to a report in Pinkvilla, back then, Amitabh had said, “Everybody knew that Aishwarya was married when she signed the film. So you mean to say that actors can’t get married or have children? I don’t think this can be a part of any contract that you cannot get married or have children if you are working on a project.” He had later said that the issue had been sorted between Aishwarya and Madhur.
Heroine received mixed reviews from both critics and audience while being touted as one of Kareena’s best performances. According to Bollywood Hungama, the movie’s box office revenue was Rs. 43 crores and the budget was Rs. 35 crores.