A Chit Chat With King Khan

The King Khan tells the inside story of Chak de!, what was it working with more than a dozen women, the toughest thing while shooting Chak de! and lots more.

Excerpts:

Naomi: What was the toughest thing while shooting for Chak de! India?

SRK: Shooting the sports part of the film. It is very difficult to shoot a sport sequence attractively or interestingly. If I was to tell, with due respect to all the cameramen here, shooting a sports film is a challenging job. Subsequently, it is also difficult to edit it.

Naomi: If that was the toughest part, is there an easy part when it comes to shooting for any film?

SRK: Acting is the easy part.

Naomi: You know you are acting when you are playing a hockey coach, did you mould like a real life coach, the mannerisms?

SRK: No, one would like to say that but I don’t work so hard. I am an easy going actor. I just go and do what naturally comes from my heart. I have a different take on acting. I have said it many times, I am not very conscientious about taking it from a character that I have seen. Obviously, I am an actor so I observe a lot of things around me and I just try to put it in a larger than life perspective when it comes to a film. But, I have never really moulded a character or seen someone, but yes there are gestures and thoughts that I keep observing of coaches when they were teaching us. There were times when I would do something different and they would say, "Hey! this is something we should include in ourselves."

Naomi: Like what?

SRK: There were moments when I asked them to use symbols or signals to make moves like one does in rugby or baseball.

Naomi: Ok. You spoke about larger than life perspective, but with this film, it's almost a return to films that you have done earlier, 'Kabhi Haan, Kabhi Naa' - more of intimate films.

SRK: To be honest, I have reached a stage, and I am not being pompous about it, if I am in a film, it's no longer a small film. I mean it's not, it's just not a small film.

Naomi: No, in terms of the theme.

SRK: The producers told me the other day, 'if you were not in this film, we would have never been able to make this film. On the other hand, somebody even told me, I wouldn't see this film if you were not in it. There is always going to be this double take on every cinema that I do. Yes, it is a little more realistic, it doesn’t have songs, it doesn’t have a heroine, but yes, it is larger than life because it has a regular commercial movie star trying to slum it or tone it down. But as an actor, it's something I believe in. I did 'Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa' at that time because nobody was giving me money to do a bigger film. But now, people give money to make a bigger film so we make bigger films.

Naomi: Do your sensibilities also change, as you grow older? Do you consciously look for a more mature persona?

SRK: I don’t know. I am really silly and stupid in 'Om Shanti Om'. I am a geek and I am running around and doing the most foolish things I have not done in the last 18 years. I play a superhero with tight costumes and I do strange things in the film. It depends on the role. I think as long as somebody is willing to take a chance on me, I am ready to do it. Suddenly, Farhan (Akhtar) comes up and says, 'Hey, I would like you to be a mean 'Don'. I like you mean.' I meet people who say I miss you being the bad guy of 'Baazigar'. So, it’s not my persona and my thought process. I don’t make the films, I act in them. If somebody believes in me, then it's my job to perform it and maintain that belief. I would do a 'Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna', if I am asked to and at the same time I would also do a film like 'Om Shanti Om'.

Naomi: Eventually, it is about an audience which wants you to, which likes a certain screen image.

SRK: I was reading an article in 'Time' magazine that which said, about 3.6 billion people recognize me in this world. It makes a lot of eyeballs and I keep thinking, 'Can I make a film that all those 3.6 billion people want to watch?, 'Can I read the minds and hearts of the people who like me?' And my answer was 'no'. Let me do a film, I like. If that persona fails, then the easiest way is when you know what people want of you. Whenever I have produced a film and it does not do well, then its not me people didn’t like, I think the film was crap, and well, I have the guts to say that.

Naomi: As an actor, does the box office still kind of unnerve you?

SRK: Absolutely. If a film does not do well, I'll be out, you won’t interview me. I'll not be a star. It will be difficult to sell my movies. When we make Rs 10, only one person has seen it, when we make 10 million dollars, about 10 million people have seen it. So, its an interesting problem we have every time we release a film.

Naomi: In Chak de, you have maximum number of co-stars you've ever had. Yet, your director says, there was no scope for romance?

SRK: That's the irony. I mean, it's ok. Bad for them!

Naomi: Their bad luck?

SRK: Well, firstly, all of them are very young, I am not saying I'm old or anything but I would feel odd romancing any of them, they are all little girls. Some of them were not even born when I started acting. There's lot of love in the film but yes we are not romantically inclined. We don’t have love making scenes.

Naomi: There aren't any, anyways in your films.

SRK: I feel too shy to do lovemaking scenes so I don’t do them. It has love, but no romantic angle. They have their romantic angles within themselves and their boyfriends.

Naomi: Hockey officials said, In India, people are not too interested in watching hockey but they are interested in watching Shahrukh. Does that put some sort of responsibility on this film, given the state of hockey?

SRK: I don’t think I can change the world, but you know in Sufism they say you are not here to change the world but if you can change the thinking of the people around you that’s good enough. My main aim in life as an actor or a producer or as an artist, is to entertain you. I try my best to make an entertaining film. Whether hockey takes a flip because of these changes and people come on road with hockey sticks and start playing, remains to be seen. I doubt that will happen, but if two or three people are able to know what hockey means, and what it means to be a sportsman or a sportswoman, I think my job is done.

Source: TimesNow