Interview With King Khan

Film City is the dream factory. But it has been commandeered for the next stage — the conversion of dreams to action.

Shah Rukh Khan is to kick off The Times of India's 'Lead India' campaign, the dynamic follow-up to its 'India Poised' campaign so inspiringly launched by Amitabh Bachchan.

On January 1, 2007, the Big B had presented the vision of an unleashed India. On August 14, King K will tell the nation to harness that awesome power into action. His message consists of two simple letters which combine to form pure, hard muscle, 'DO'.

Amitabh Bachchan had stood against the magnificent sweep of the Bandra-Worli sealink. The venue for the SRK film is the unvarnished Studio 4 of Film City. It looks like a dilapidated warehouse. Its walls are a scabrous black,
a leftover from a previous incarnation as a set which needed this somber feel.

Studios can change their garb faster than an actress in a song sequence. The next film shot here might convert this into a mock marble mahal. But, for the Times production, Studio 4 has been left unadorned, except for a small cocoon of intimacy created with the help of a curtained window (false), a wicker armchair (real), and mood lighting (generated).

Under the orchestration of a mop-haired director, the set is being readied; the shots being framed. The dolly camera glides up and down the track like a railway inspection cart.

Nests of yellow bulbs are being suspended from the roof's iron webbing by a trapeze electrician undistracted by the buzz on ground zero. Amidst the huddle of technicians and production assistants, the teaboy bustles, his stalagmite of paper cups glowing eerily in this darkened cavern.

The anticipation is as palpable as an item girl. And just as it is becoming unbearable, the hero arrives — King Khan dressed as a commoner in fashionably faded blue jeans and simple, V-neck tee which shows his lean, six-pack frame without showing it off.

Stud is not his name, or his game. A hush falls, all action freezes, and is immediately defrosted by the white heat of flurried action.

The director spells out the sequence, SRK listens as intently as though he were back as a 10-year-old at St Columba's, rehearsing for his first role in 'Oz'. He lips the script with coiled concentration; measure tapes are uncoiled from his head to the camera.

The crucial letters, D and O, are buffed to a gleam; a gleaming forehead is puffed over. The director barks out the LCA cliche. The camera rolls as the lights go on and the action begins.

Shah Rukh Khan plays with the alphabetical duo, suspends the 'O' from the ledge of the 'D', ting-tings them together like a bus conductor's bell, and starts speaking. He doesn't act, he lives, breathes, exudes the script. It's a two-minute, controlled depth charge, an intense, condensed Chak de India, spurring the nation to action. By the end of it, you want to rise from your seat and surge forward, in much the same way as he stands up and walks into the camera's rapt face.

He does several takes, first in English, then in Hindi. He reviews the results, goes through the revisions. Then Shah Rukh Khan has to rush to shoot for Om Shanti Om. There is no time for the leisurely interview we had planned in the spotted 'vanity van' which has been sitting like an expectant monster Dalmatian outside Studio 4.

He offers to speak to us on his drive to Studio 11. Arguably the BMW is more comfortable, so we willingly sink into the champagne leather seats. It glides like a panther through the lush monsoon grass as SRK responds to questions at a speed to match.

On the way back, ensconced in the plush depths of the ultimate driving machine, we resist the temptation to fiddle with the gizmos, or play the poseur with the D&G shades which wickedly beckon from the arm-rest. Mohan, who has been instructed to drop us back to reality aka Studio 4, points out the permanent sets.

"Yeh courthouse hai, wahan Church hai, aur baju mein college. Jiska kaam pade, wahan shoot karo." We luxuriate in the extra bonus. The next best thing to be given the tour of Film City by Shah Rukh Khan is to be given the tour by Shah Rukh Khan's driver.

Source: TimesNewsNetwork