JOIN USAfter a gap of 10 years, Shah Rukh Khan has again teamed up with his friend Farah Khan for the film ‘Happy New Year’. The actor talks to Rajiv Vijayakar about the film and the perils of being a star.
Shah Rukh Khan quips at one stage in our conversation: “At one time, I wanted to be the most recognised face in the world. So now I cannot wear dark glasses. It is a choice I have made!”
The youngest of the Super-Khans is set to release his magnum opus, Happy New Year, his first vehicle with good friend Farah Khan after the bad patch in their relationship ended. The experience has been so fulfilling that the six principal players and the director are acutely suffering from the realisation that their happy phase together is going to end after the mad round of promotions are over. So we ask him about why they cannot come together in a sequel and Shah Rukh smiles and says, “Let this film release first, yaar.”
As of now, his company, Red Chillies Entertainment, is finally gearing up to go where they first planned two years ago — making multiple films of all kinds, and continue what has been Shah Rukh’s passion — Red Chillies VFX or visual effects. “Inshallah, we will take off soon. We have a full team in place — 80 per cent of whom have been with us for 10 years. Each one is an expert at creative, business or technological aspects.”
Success mantra
Shah Rukh has two principal ‘fundas’ about business — one, to get only into a business he personally loves, and two, to not do everything himself but leave things to those who are best at it. “I am a partner in Kidzania, and I own Kolkata Knight Riders. But there are lessons I have learnt on the way,” he tells you. “There was a time when I was directly interacting with my cricket team. Now I have a CEO who does that.”
He adds, “In films too, I would hate distributors telling me what to do and what not, and I do not want to do something like that to my creative team. And while films that will star me will have to be big, I would like to produce smaller films that I would like to watch but cannot star in because of my star status.”
It’s a paradoxical yet apt statement that Shah Rukh takes his superstardom lightly yet seriously. And that is because he understands it well. Like the way he describes his unique popular standing abroad: “I am alone there,” he twinkles. “Dil Se Naachein Indiawaale, the dance reality show we have put together on Zee to promote our film, is not really needed there.”
And yet he accepts that a superstar who is loved by millions lives a “beautiful but disturbed life”. Asked why his eyes turned moist at the first look launch of his film when Jackie Shroff stated that Shah Rukh had worked his way to the top but was lonely there, the actor grins wryly and states, “How many people are blessed like I am in this world of 600 crore people? 200, 20,000 or 2 crore? And how many of them are accessible to me as confidantes?”
This, he says, is the reason why he cannot share or discuss his innermost thoughts and problems with even his best friends. “It is lonely where I am, for what I do and why I do it can be understood only by someone who is in my position. Many a time, I do not feel satisfied about a film of mine, but it is loved by people who praise it generously to me. So I choose to keep quiet, because I cannot explain my reasons.”
Family life also poses challenges. “I have just released the first picture of my son AbRam. People have already begun saying, ‘Oh, he will become a hero,’ when he is too young to even know his name. Aryan is now 16 and has faced the same problem since he was 12 or 13. At that age, it should be a rule that you should not know what you want to become. For that choice, you need education and life’s experiences. And he was so confused that he came and asked me, ‘Do you want me to become an actor?’ So Gauri and I packed him off to London, where people knew who he was but never asked him such questions.
”Eyeing the future
Shah Rukh even sympathises with the pressures that superstar-fathers can unwittingly bring on their sons. “I can’t imagine what kind of pressures must be there on Abhishek Bachchan and Vivaan Shah because they are sons of men who are world-famous in the same field! But if my children do want to turn actors, I can teach and guide them.”Coming finally to his new film, we ask him the primary query: how similar and different is this film to the Happy New Year that Farah and he had planned just after Main Hoon Na a decade ago?
“There are major differences,” he lets on. “The ending was different and the story was about five young lads from a slum who somehow wanted to migrate to the US to earn lots of money, so they thought of participating in a dance championship as a passport. There was no heist involved and we were even planning to cast Amitabh Bachchan as the older man who protects them.”
Come to the premise of the film, and Shah Rukh becomes more voluble. “Yes, losers do get that one chance to turn winners, but you have to recognise it when it comes. Today, I am perceived as a successful businessman, but even my initial moves in all fields failed,” he smiles.
Finally, Shah Rukh tells us that he has made it a rule never to interfere in the casting of any of his films, home productions or otherwise. “It is not my call. Deepika and I were shooting at dawn for the last song of Chennai Express at Film City and got chatting. I asked her what new films she was doing, and she mentioned, ‘…And Happy New Year.’ Now, just two days ago, Farah had told me that she was thinking of approaching Deepika, but I, as a producer, did not even know that she was on.”