Has Shah Rukh Khan Changed in the Last 20 Yrs? Find Out
A throwback to Shah Rukh Khan’s first popular interview on ‘Aap Ki Adalat’
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If you’ve seen the trailer of Shah Rukh Khan’s Fan, in the build-up to the character of the star Aryan Khanna in the film, we’re rushed through photographs, video clips and interviews from Shah Rukh Khan’s own real life. One of the clips has SRK saying with his trademark grin:
This is a clip from Shah Rukh Khan’s first interview on Aap Ki Adalat in 1994. It’s an interesting and insightful one, like most of Khan’s interviews are. We see a cocky, confident and charming 29-year-old actor, fresh off the success of films like Deewana, Baadshah and Darr smartly defending himself of the charges thrown against him. So almost 20 years later, has SRK changed? Figure it out for yourself:
Self-Assured or Arrogant?
When asked if it was correct to label him as ‘arrogant’, Shah Rukh says that it’s a norm in the industry for people to bow down and say “yes sir” to everything, so when a guy comes around who believes in standing upright and greeting you with a namaste it’s seen as arrogance.
When Rajat Sharma further questions him about putting forward conditions (how dare he?) before signing a film SRK happily agrees. Khan says:
Well, not much has changed here really, check out this interview with SRK we did last week. The actor pretty much echoes the same ‘condition’.
In the interview from 1994, Khan goes on to say that before listening to the script he pretty much tells the director that he won’t do stuff like Govinda’s gyrations or ‘Sarkailo Khatiya’, but what’s interesting is that he candidly admits that he watches all of it but just can’t bring himself to do it:
Shah Rukh’s conditions include not doing a film that does not respect women, though he admits that he has slapped women in his films.
When asked if he accepts the charge of copying Dilip Kumar’s acting mannerisms, Khan shoots back with this:
And then come the prophetic words:
Public Face vs Private Space
Over the years though Shah Rukh has been more than accommodating to let the media access all aspects of his life, including a documentary titled The Inner World of Shah Rukh Khan, which candidly follows the star in his daily life. SRK has also constantly been protective about the privacy of his family and still is.
When accused by Sharma of misbehaving with the press for writing about his private life, SRK responds:
On Playing Negative and Glorifying Evil
After films like Baadshah, Darr and Anjaam, SRK had sort of made himself an easy target for this holier-than-thou question:
Aren’t you glorifying murder, victimization, torture through your films, Mr Khan?
Surprisingly, Shah Rukh seems slightly rattled by the question, doesn’t find an easy answer, but tackles it with his now trademark wit.
It’s probably the discomfort from questions like this and some self-introspection that finally led the actor to switch over to playing a full-time romantic.
And finally, SRK is grilled about his attempt to buy the Filmfare award for Best Actor. Yes, Shah Rukh did actually walk into the Filmfare office and offer the editor money in return for the award. But instead of letting this become a ‘scoop’ for the press, the actor revealed it himself in public at the awards show. Here’s how he philosophically puts it on Sharma’s show:
Ace photographer Gautam Rajadhyaksha, who was the judge on this particular episode of Aap Ki Adalat read out his verdict on SRK as:
Well, most journalists and fans may agree that Shah Rukh Khan did take that bit of advice to heart. You could accuse the biggest superstar in the world (as he was recently tagged by the British press) of many things, but not being nice is definitely not one of them.