Ghai wanted to make a film called"Hero".He wanted to cast one of the star-sons who were rising high in the early eighties.Kumar Gaurav,Sanjay Dutt and Sunny Deol were in the race. He approached all the three and the kind of prices they were demanding was not acceptable to him. And he decided to create a star of his own. He had seen a handsome but struggling actor in Dev Anand's "Swami Dada".
The actor had just one scene in which he is seen sitting in a stable of horses and has no dialogue to speak. Ghai had seen some rare sparks in the man called him to his office. The young man was hesitant, but very frank and told Ghai that he didn't know anything about acting. Ghai spent more than two hours with the young man and finally signed him to play his "Hero ".
That young man was Jackie Shroff and the man who said he didn't know acting has been a very active actor in Hindi films for more than forty years and is now even the father of Tiger Shroff, the star of the new generation.