"Chak De India is different, it doesn't have a heroine, it doesn't have a love story": SRK

Shah Rukh Khan's first out-and-out sporty endeavour 'Chak De! India' releases this week (August 10). TIMES NOW correspondent Pratiksha Menon got him talking about his scruffy look in the film and why he supports feminism.

Interview excerpts

Pratiksha: Is this film an experiment, and do you believe in its feminist theme?

Shahrukh: This is a message about how sports should be nurtured in our country and women should be nurtured in our country. I'd like to do a film about women every year, but I don't like the bra-burning type of movies where they say 'Zakhmi Aurat' etc. But if you make films like this (Chak De), and perhaps like me also talk about it like (in the film), women will get confident and say why not you're right - women are educated, pretty, they do as well as guys. Especially in my line of work - from the actresses to working in the technical aspect - the other day a woman cameraperson was shooting me, she does fantastic work. Even a 'liberated' person like me thought, my God isn't a camera too big for a girl? So even I sometimes think stupidly, like a man.

The film is different, it doesn't have a heroine, it doesn't have a love story. It's got 16 new girls, it does not have a song, it does not have a villain, it does not have Shahrukh Khan in Switzerland. I just did it because I wanted to play hockey once again.

Pratiksha: How rigorous was working on Chak De for you... was it physically taxing?

Shahrukh: I am sportsman by nature, and physically also, I like to play games so I continue playing games whenever I get a chance. Hockey was something I had not played for a long time and so I had to go back to it and play for a couple of days. I used to play after pack-up or while training with them (team) - there was the stick and a ball and the girls were there and so you just start playing. I did play for about a month, and yes, it was difficult. I tore my hamstring, though I was not even playing full out. I wasnot bedridden but I couldn't walk around for a month. And the by the time we came to shoot in Delhi I was still strapped.

But no, it wasn't rigorous for me. I have had two knee surgeries and on my ankles, they hurt when the cold sets in, the bones pain. I need to take injections - yeah that happens! But it happens even if I am doing a dance. So that's not a big issue.

Pratiksha: Your scruffy look is going down very well with the ladies. Was it intentional?

Shahrukh: You know there's an 'eight years ago' period, and I come back in the film eight years later. I think I was unshaven, I wasn't working that time, I had just finished 'Don'. I was on time off and I was not well and I think Adi (Aditya Chopra) and everyone came and said, Hey will you keep the beard? So I kept it since its for just one film I was doing, because I have never grown a beard...Yeah, it looks nice. I saw the film three days ago. You know, on television sometimes or personally, when I look at it it looks scruffy and not very clean. But when I saw it on screen, it looked very nice - at least for the character. It makes me look different. It's a nice crutch to an actor. I look very different and it seems I am acting different.

The character's name is Kabir Khan - he doesn't have a beard because he is Muslim, but it just feels nice in the scheme of things. He is supposed to be a bit of an older person, for the girls so it gives a kind of maturity.

Source: TimesNow