Katrina lost out on Race 3 as Salman didn't want to repeat her after Tiger Zinda Hai?

There was a time when Jacqueline Fernandez saw Katrina Kaif as a kind of role model what with both of them being outsiders with no gyaan of the rashtra bhasha. A more critical commonality is Salman Khan.

While Katrina’s proximity to the superstar Khan is a part of movie folklore, Jackkie has recently been making every effort to get into Salman’s good books. Her attempts to ingratiate herself to the mega-star include visits to his residence in Bandra to meet his family (this is a ploy adopted by many heroines who want to star opposite Salman).

All the social niceties paid off when the affable Jacqueline landed the female lead opposite Salman in Sajid Nadiadwala’s Kick. Since then she has been hungering for more roles with the superstar. It finally happened when she landed the part of the Remo D’Souza’a dance film, in which Salman was to play the lead.

But then the unexpected happened. Salman decided he was too old to play a dancing star. He decided to do another film with Remo — Race 3, produced by Ramesh Taurani. At this point, Jacqueline was not part of the translocated package. One hears Katrina was the number one choice for the female lead opposite Salman in Race 3. But then, in this whirligig of grand illusion known as Bollywood, there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. The plum role in Race 3 earmarked for Katrina has now gone to Jacqueline purely on Salman’s recommendation. We hear Salman felt morally obliged to compensate not only Remo but also Jacqueline after the dance film they were doing together was shut down. So Salman being Salman, cart-lifted the entire team to an alternative project, flood-relief style. Hopefully, this development won’t do much to aggravate Katrina’s friendship with her Sri Lankan rival.