Shah Rukh Khan isn’t a fan of standing in line and asking his idols for autographs. Even when he met his favourite pop star, Madonna, in the 1990s, he preferred to keep his distance. Khan just wanted to take in the moment.
“I don’t want to encroach upon them. But that’s just me,” said Khan in an interview with tabloid!.
Had such an anecdote come from any other Bollywood superstar, it would have sounded conceited. But Khan isn’t vain — especially when it comes to interacting with his fans. Just like Tom Cruise, Khan is all about his fans. He loves the adulation and thrives off the love of millions of fans, mostly women. Some even go to the extent of sending him love letters written in blood.
His latest film Fan, out in the UAE on April 14, dwells on the warped side of celebrity culture. Directed by Maneesh Sharma and produced by Aditya Chopra, Fan is the story of a young Delhi-based man, Gaurav, who will go to any lengths to meet his Bollywood idol, Aryan Khanna. Gaurav bears an uncanny resemblance to the superstar, too.
“But Gaurav isn’t a psychopath,” said Khan.
Excerpts from our interview with Khan as we talk stardom, failures and being in the spotlight ...
Why should we watch Fan?
Fan is an attempt at thrillers. This is an emotional thriller, a specific genre in its own way. Normally, you don’t make them often in Indian films because there’s that need to keep them in the popular mould. But in Fan, there are no songs, just a background score that will enhance the atmosphere of the events that unravel. Plus, the storyline is different. I have not heard of a film that turns out the way Fan does. I hear a few people comparing it to the De Niro and Wesley Snipes film [The Fan], but it is a very different storyline. It’s not Cape Fear either. Fan is an original film. It’s not just about a fan or an admirer loving his star. Gaurav also looks like the star he idolises. And all his life, he has observed Aryan Khanna. I joke about it now, but when I was growing up, Satte Pe Satta [a 1982 action film] with Mr [Amitabh] Bachchan had just released. So when my sister first got a pair of [coloured] contact lenses, I wore them, put powder in my hair to look like Mr Bachchan.
While I was growing up, I even had people tell me that I looked similar to Al Pacino and that my eyes resembled his. At that time, I believed I was Al Pacino. So here’s a person in Fan who believes that he looks like his idol. Can it be that the person who resembles him disappoints him, without it being the fault of the other person? Can your gods be not as good as you thought they were, or is it right to expect so much from your gods?
Sometimes people whom you admire just don’t have the time. It’s that aspect that takes a big turn in this film. I find that aspect thrilling. The twists, the turns, the technology that went into creating my face. I hope people appreciate all that when they watch Fan.
Who were you a fan of before becoming a big Bollywood star?
It’s strange, but I feel I grew up too fast. Before I became a fan, I became a star. I am not being immodest here, just honest. I didn’t have the luxury to be a fan or to look up to someone. I had to look after myself by the age of fifteen. I am not sad about it, but I feel I have missed out on being a fan. Though I admire actors such as Robert De Niro, Mr Bachchan, Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and several others, I have never experienced the feeling of being a fan.
Fair enough, but have you ever considered standing in line for an autograph?
This is a personal thing: if I like someone, I just want to see them. I am not judging those who take autographs here. For instance, I loved Michael Jackson, but I don’t even have a picture with him. When I met Madonna backstage, there were several actors who took a picture with her. She met me backstage, but I still didn’t. I would not stand in a line and that’s not because I am too big a star or that I think too much of myself. I just don’t want to encroach upon them.
Dilwale wasn’t received well. Is Fan your attempt at re-inventing yourself?
Fan was supposed to release on August 15 last year and Dilwale was supposed to release after, followed by Raees. But Fan took longer than expected because of [visual effects]. I don’t work in such a manner that if a commercial film like Dilwale wasn’t liked by the critics, I say to myself ‘let me make a film that will be liked by critics now’.
I do a film because I want to. If they do well, I smile and if they don’t, so be it. I have been in this business too long. Karan [Johar, producer-director-actor] said something in an article recently that everybody likes critics to like your work. I am sure that’s true, but I have had films that weren’t liked by critics, but have gone on to do very well [at the box office]. And then, there were films like Swades, which was loved by critics, but didn’t do well. People dubbed it ahead of [its] time and it may be good in retrospect. A movie is for the moment and in that moment I live. I will finish Raees soon and now I am looking forward to doing something funny and fluffy. I will just go ahead. At the time of signing Dilwale, I wanted to do a mad, over-the-top Rohit Shetty film. I have been here long enough to know it would never get the Berlinale [Golden] Bear. Maybe this film [Fan] won’t get it either. The idea of Fan was there ten years ago, but when it was narrated to me then I felt it was too close to Darr and Baazigar. There’s no re-invention happening here. As an actor I find it extremely exciting to blow up cars and also enact scenes in Fan that go: ‘why the [expletive] should I give you five minutes of my time. You can’t enter my space and say you want five minutes of my time. It’s my time’ [a dialogue from Fan where the superstar Aryan Khanna swats his fan Gaurav’s attempts to get closer to his idol].
You take pride in making the bad look good. So is the intent to sympathise with the stalker Gaurav here?
We made a clear decision that Gaurav has to be the most loved. Honestly, I refused many films in the past because I thought if I played that bad guy and you liked me, it is not a good thing. So I didn’t play them. In Darr, my role [that of a stalker] was about being in love, In Anjaam, my role [that of an obsessive lover] was about being psychotic and Baazigar was a revenge story. And Don is just sexy and cool. He’s not such a bad guy and we try not to show him kill anyone. For Don, we realised during the end of its second instalment that people liked him a lot and so we couldn’t make him too mean. I think if I play the bad guy, you have to make him loved and endearing. I don’t want to make Gaurav come across as this anti-hero.
But isn’t Gaurav, essentially a stalker?
You won’t think of Gaurav as a man who needs treatment in this film. All he needed was love. Maneesh and Adi, who worked on the script, were clear that I shouldn’t play him like a psychopath or as a mentally unstable chap. He just loves this star and goes out to meet him.
Is it true that you don’t feel like a star until you have a stalker?
I have never had experiences such as the ones we portray in the film. Most of my fans are ladies. Even whenever they do something bad to me, I feel good [laughs]. I have no issues with that. I like meeting people who like me. I like hugging them and kissing them. At times, people around me tell me it’s too much, you don’t need to do it. But I need to. I need to touch those people who have touched me and my life. Many couples tell me that they got married because of one of the scenes I did in a film. And that always feels good.
Don’t miss it!
Fan releases in the UAE on April 14.
Khan’s only “fan” moment — with Zayn Malik
Shah Rukh Khan would never stand in line for an autograph, but he broke the golden rule when he met One Director singer Zayn Malik. It was the first selfie that the 50-year-old star initiated.
“I did something I have never done before. I told him [Zayn]: ‘let’s just take a photo’ and I sent it to my daughter,” said Khan. His teenage daughter is Malik’s biggest fan.
The selfie with Khan and Malik went on to make Twitter history last year and became the most retweeted picture in India as it hit 120,000 retweets and was favourited 170,000 times.
Did you know?
* Fan is the first film to be shot at Madame Tussauds in London.
* Shah Rukh Khan’s makeup was done by three-time Academy Award winning makeup artist Greg Cannom, who also worked on Brad Pitt’s film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
* Fan features real-life footage from his birthday celebrations in 2014 and 2015 at his mansion Mannat in Mumbai.
* To protect the plot and the look of Fan, no one — not even Shah Rukh Khan — was allowed to take a phone on set.
