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Shah Rukh Khan holds forth on fame, films,
fallouts and the future. He has a dimpled smile that disarms even the
most veteran of us. And Shah Rukh Khan does
smile throughout our conversation. His film Happy New Year is due for release and he's a frenzied, yet happy place and that shows in his
replies. He reaches out to fans the world over
through his world tour and finds it all very
humbling. And he wants to take risks, blaze the
trail and all that. And he is doing it. Here, he talks about going bigger, better and
grander... in everything.
You've always made your films on a grand
scale. Do you think this will give other
producers the confidence to take as many
risks?
If I say I did it, it would be wrong. It sounds
strange. I feel every film company should have
some kind of a speciality attached to it. That is
very important because otherwise you won't
create a niche for yourself. Everybody produces
films, but there is a Yash Raj who has a niche for the kind of cinemas they make and promote.
I did not know what kind of cinema I wanted
because I am not a very creative producer. But I
knew very clearly in my head that I like few
things about other film companies that I have
read or heard about. When I got into a position where I could produce a film or two, after I had
done something, I tried to create a speciality.
Technology has always been something that
turns me on. I thought if we are able to offer
that to a film director or the actors who work
with us later on which could make the film a better product, that is something I would like to
do. So, the VFX was started about 10 years ago
with that thought in mind. It started with three
people but today we have 240 people. It is
difficult to sustain it but I think it makes the
films better and that is definitely the future. I could afford to do it, not in terms of money but
in terms of the idea. So I have done that. I don't
think I have done anything so special. It is a
space that's wanting to be filled. So if this gives
other people the confidence to try out different
things, why not? Eventually, it is about making our cinema look better, bigger and more
international.
How was the feeling of getting closer to your
international fans through the Slam! tour and
getting appreciated by the global audience as
well?
(Pausess) My My whole life in the last 15-20
years, is actually not burdened, but bogged
down by the love people have given me. I don't
know how to return it back, I have no absolute
idea. My whole logic has been that maybe
through the work I do, I would be able to please as many people as I can and do as many films
as I can do. but there is only a limit which is
doable for me. So I do small things like a
Kidzania or an IPL team to try and bring in
some happiness to people through
entertainment. Besides that, I seldom get to see people who have made me. I don't realise how
much they love me and how they love me so
much. I can only read about it but that is not
like one-on-one. So any opportunity that I get
to be able to interact with people- whether it is
a match, or a function or maybe city tours - I take it. The world tour was an interesting
opportunity to participate in for the
international audience and I can say that
without any doubt that I have the most loving
international audience than any other star
(smiles). Whether its Germany or Peru, Austria, Morocco, France or South East Asia, I have
some amazing places where I bump into people.
But I think the world tour is the best way to at
least spend sometime with them and glet them
know that they mean a lot to me. So the
experience has been overwhelming, humbling but it is difficult to comprehend or believe how
am I going to return this back!
Not just a world tour, this is the first time
ever that a Bollywood film has flagged off an entire show on television. How did all of it
fall in place?
Our film is about bad dancers, stupid dancers. I
do a lot of research on my roles after I hear the
narration. So for this film I went on YouTube
and saw dances by many weird dancers. But the
weird dancer is the last one to know that he/she
is a weird dancer. They are really cool that way. I have someone in my office as well. I have an
accountant who is a world-class dancer. While
they are having a good time not realise that
they are not good dancers, people watching
them dance also have fun. I have spent hours
on YouTube with my son watching weird dancers and I had a great time doing it. It is the
most amazing thing that you don't know you
are a bad dancer but the world knows it, yet
they love it and get entertained. It is a strange
dichotomy. For me, this film is about that. Even
in Bollywood we have some great dancers, be it Hrithik or Shahid or Govinda they all are fantastic. They are inspiring, that is why you
love them. There are some heroines, Deepika
included, who dance like magic. I know I can
never do that. I thought it would be a cool idea
to have a dance show of your own. We wanted
to make it competitive, but keep it lighter than technique of dancing. It is about how you
dance when you are alone, when nobody's
watching you! I have enjoyed watching it and I
assume people too will watch and like it. And if
anybody could put it together, it had to be Zee!
Our film is a dance film and it is about the worst dancers but the happiest ones... that's the
kind of show it is. We all love technical dances
but we have never seen usual dancing.
Sometimes we just want to see the out-takes,
the people who don't make it to the top! Most
people do not know how to dance and they still dance at Ganpati and at parties and I find that
really good. The film, being about losers, also
encompasses the feeling that the people might
not be the best at something, but they still
enjoy doing it!
You are seen as the ultimate common man
but your films have always been larger-than-
life where nothing is ordinary anymore. How
did you deal with such a leap of faith?
You are absolutely right! Only the last time I
was discussing with someone when I was
travelling in the bus, why is it that people like
me so much? I don't have any reason for it! But
maybe, somewhere the backstory of my life
makes people believe that if I could, even they can! I am not a role model or someone who can
be looked up to but when people think of me,
they would fell, 'He lives a normal life. He had
no backing, no money and many of his stories
are not even normal. But he did make it and so
can we. Yes, I think that I cannot inspire but somehow invoke that thought in people. I
believe in that as well. I would say that to every
young kid that no matter where you come from,
and no matter where you are going, it does not
matter as long as you are doing something
whihc you are passionate about. It somewhere will turn out right and it has! Maybe, that helps.
And I guess it is more because common people
have bigger dreams because they aren't born
with a silver spoon in their mouth! The smaller
you are, the bigger your dreams would be. Also,
common people have more desires unfulfilled. So I use films as a venting machine. In cinema, I
can create bigger, I can dream bigger. The
directors who are working with me tell me that
we need X and I tell them, we can have Y and Z
too to make it look nicer and bigger. With
television and internet around now, yet I believe cinematic experience can only be experienced
in cinema! So if we dont make cinematically
appealing films, the audience would lose
interest saying that they can see this anywhere!
I have a 100-inch TV in my house which is
almost like a movie screen, why would I go to a theatre to watch a film unless it's an experience
which is different from what I can have at home.
So when people buy expensive tickets, travel so
much for your films, I just want to make sure
that this experience is not equivalent to the
cosiness of your house.
The pulse of the audience has changed. The
gap between conventional and unconventional
cinema is getting bridged. How much do you
think Bollywood has changed?
See, the pulse never changes. The pulse remains
the same. I am not patronising, but whenever
younger people ask me this question, I tell them
that "Even I believed, when I was your age, that
cinema is changing and that both kind of
cinemas work. Chakra also worked and so did Parvarish! I have also done a Oh Darling Yeh
Hai India and an Idiot or a Raju Ban Gaya
Gentleman and a Karan Arjun. Later on, I did a
Chak De as well. There is always a parallel way of
liking film. There are two kind of audiences -
the populist and the niche. Everyone gets entertained in a different way because your
mode of entertainment is different from mine. I
also believe just because it is different, nobody
has right to question another's choices.
Commercial cinema has to have something for
everyone. We should try to appeal to every section of the audience. However, I don't like
the fact that people make a film just for the
sake of making it different. Moving pictures
have to have a narrative. You cannot tell me a
story without me having to completely imagine
it. Moving pictures need to tell me what the story is, otherwise I get totally offended. I
understand off beat cinema, I understand open
endings, but a storyteller can't make me feel
stupid. You cannot make your film work by
showing that you are more intelligent than the
viewer. The idea of art is to make you see yourself in it. An offbeat film offends me until
and unless it tells a story.
[BWere you apprehensive about the comparison
of Happy New Year with other heist films when you heard the script?[/B]
I was not apprehensive, but I knew there would
be comparisons. When Farah and I were
discussing the film, we were very cool about it
because we are very open people. We know we
are not going to copy any other film blatantly.
So Happy New Year is like The Full Monty meets Ocean's Eleven. Bad dancers wanting to make a
quick buck but how they become famous for
that. No scenes have been taken from any of
these films, but the heist will look similar but
that is what all heists are about. I don't think a
combination of heist and dance has ever been made. It is a strange and a difficult genre to
make. It can go completely wrong and we have
taken a big risk. Mixing the two is a challenge
and that's Farah's inherent quality... to have
madness in the film. When I heard the story I
told her then only, 'People are going to say this. It is another dance film or a copy of some heist
films'. We knew that our film is like Ocean's
Eleven and that's why we have made our film so
large, cinematically. You have seen Ocean
Eleven, but it is not as grand as Happy New
Year, so shut up! (Laughs) Indians should be proud of Happy New Year as the film is as big
as any other Hollywood film. So yes, for people,
I am George Clooney, Abhishek is Brad Pitt and Deepika is Julia Roberts.
[The average window for most films has come
down to the first weekend. At the same time,
DDLJ is still running in theatres. Do you miss
that time?[/B]
Earlier, films used to release in four theatres. If it
did well, in 10. If it did really well, it would
release in Delhi, otherwise it would release in
UP. A film took a year to release all over the
country. Today you can get a film on your
laptop within 30 minutes by downloading it. So the number of people watching a film has
increased but number of people going to the
theatres has not. I truly believe that the next big
superstar will be on the net. Today with
digitization, the platform has changed but if
you ask me, I would say, now the big guy would be the one on television. Previously, 50 crore
people saw my film over a year, now 50 crore
people see my film over the weekend. I can do
it even faster now. I don't think it is difficult to
be a star now. There are so many options now,
hence the longevity of stardom has reduced. I don't think the next superstar will last for 24
years like me, but he will be there for five years
and then a new one will come, because of ove-
exposure. I miss those days but now we have
other things now like 1 million views in one day,
5 million views in three days which is like Silver Jubilee and Golden Jubilee for today. The pulse
still remains the same, we still want to joke, we
still want to have fun and be entertained! The
reality, the aspect will change though!
So much is written about your fallouts with
your contemporaries. A section of the
audience took your comments on the PK poster the wrong way. Does that bother you?
I had not seen the PK poster before it released! I
was one of the first people to see the PK poster
because I saw it early morning. I keep awake late
and the poster was released at night. So before
the poster went public, it came on to my Twitter
account or maybe someone emailed it to me. I did not have any issues and I did not find
anything negative about the poster or the
maker's creativity. I am actually one of the most
liberal people as far as creativity is concerned.
That is why my jokes are like that! My co actors
know me and hence they do not take my jokes in a wrong way. Else, I would have been slapped
half the time. I have no ill will for anyone in the
industry. I am bored answering the same kind of
questions. I don't even have time to think about
all that. Nobody has time to do all that. I
haven't slept for god knows how many hours, I am busy with the digitization of my film. My last
thought is what the others are doing. I wish
them all the success in whatever they do.
Similarly, nobody else has the time to think
about a Shah Rukh Khan. We are so self-
obsessed, self-centred, absolutely wanting to get our things done and working so much for it,
we don't even get too much time to think about
our own families, let alone everyone else.
Everyone is free to have opinions but
unfortunately, we are the audience to people of
the same profession. Hence I tend to not comment on anybody else's films.
Your upcoming films Raees and Fan are in a
different space...
I don't choose films for the sake of films. I
choose them based on what state of mind I am
in at that point. As an actor, I don't think any
film is different. Everything is big, the scale is
huge and everything is larger-than-life. I wanted
to be in a realistic space and Maneesh mentioned Fan to me a long time back. It is like
I have never seen the life from the point of view
of someone who likes me. I have seen the world
only from being a movie star or a well-known
public figure. It will be very interesting for me
being on the other side. Somebody likes me, somebody hates me and some are die-hard fans
so I want to know how it feels being a fan. It is
completely diametrically opposite to who I am.
To me, acting in a film like this is exactly the
same to acting in a Chak De, Swades or a
Dilwale! Raees is a very earthy role. I am a very urban actor but Rahul Dholakia could think of
me in the earthy role. It simply is something I
have not done before.
And there is a film with Rohit Shetty as well.
I want to make a bigger film than HNY with
Rohit now. He is very funny and I really love
working with him. I think he is fantastic, just
awesome with the energy he brings to the sets!
Rohit is as hard-working as I am and he has a
big vision. He has a mad sense of humour and a sensibility that I lack. He can appeal to a section
of people which is something that even I cannot
do!
Rohit and you are also planning a Marathi
film..
We are discussing that as well. Regional cinema
today has grown and progressed. If I, as an
actor, can do anything for its progression, why
not? But nothing has been finalised as of now.
But if you ask me if I have the desire to do
something like that, yes I do!
Anupamaa
Fan Fictions
Health and Fitness
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