'You can't imitate Dilip Kumar'

Shah Rukh Khan, who was appreciated for the role of a doomed lover in the 2002 remake of Devdas, earlier played by Dilip Kumar in the 1955 film of the same name, feels nobody can imitate the thespian.

“You can’t imitate Dilip Kumar. Whoever copies Dilip Kumar, they are idiots like me (sic),” said Shah Rukh at the launch of Nasreen Munni Kabir’s book ‘The Dialogue Devdas’.

The superstar also feels he would have never mustered the courage to be part of
Devdas had he seen Dilip Kumar’s version.

“Had we seen the film before making it, we would never had the guts to make it. Sanjay (Leela Bhansali), Aishwarya (Rai Bachchan) and Madhuri (Dixit), we all felt that we should first finish the film and then watch it.”

It is said that so far the novel has been made into films 15 times, including in languages like Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Urdu and Assamese.