WATCH: Shahrukh Khan interviewd by CNN TALK ASIA

PART 01

PART 02

PART 03

WATCH EPISODE 05: Living with a Superstar - Shahrukh Khan

PART 01

PART 02

IPL 2010: Kolkata Knight Riders beat Kings XI Punjab by 39 runs

Ajit Agarkar and Shane Bond took two wickets each after Manoj Tiwary and Sourav Ganguly hit 75 and 50 respectively as Kolkata Knight Riders beat Kings XI Punjab by 39 runs in their IPL clash at PCA Stadium in Mohali on Saturday.

Chasing a victory target of 184 runs, Kings XI managed to score 144/6 in their 20 overs.

Irfan Pathan's was the last wicket to fall when he was dismissed caught and bowled by Bond.

Kings XI effectively lost the match when Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara were dismissed in consecutive overs to leave the hosts tottering at 98/5.

Jayawardene (16) edged a full length delivery by Angelo Mathews onto his stumps while trying to play it to fine leg and in the next over Sangakkara went for a switch-hit against Chris Gayle and not only missed the delivery but also stumbled out of his crease to be stumped by Wriddhiman Saha.

Ajit Agarkar took his second wicket in his second over when he had Manvinder Bisla caught by David Hussey at mid-off to reduce Kings XI to 54/3.

Manoj Tiwary took a superb catch at deep mid-wicket as Agarkar dismissed Yuvraj Singh (24) for his first wicket in his first over.

Shane Bond trapped Ravi Bopara plumb in front of the wicket on the second ball as Kings XI Punjab got off to a poor start chasing 184 to win.

Kings XI lost their first wicket without a run on the board but Bopara was unlucky to given out as the ball was going over the stumps.

Earlier, Manoj Tiwary's unbeaten 75 and Sourav Ganguly's 50 enabled Knight Riders to set a 184-run target for Kings XI.

Tiwary hit 2 sixes and 8 fours in his 47-ball knock and hit Irfan Pathan for 2 sixes and 2 fours in the last over of the Knight Riders' innings.

Brett Lee took a good catch in the covers to send Angelo Mathews back to the dugout to give Pathan his second wicket.

Sourav Ganguly and David Hussey fell in successive overs shortly before Tiwary reached his fifty.

Pathan had Ganguly (50) caught by Piyush Chawla at mid-off as Knight Riders lost their third wicket.

In the next over, Chawla clean bowled Hussey (3) to reduce Knight Riders to 130/4.

Ganguly hit a 37-ball 50 soon after Kolkata Knight Riders crossed the 100-run mark.

This is Ganguly's first IPL 50 after 16 inings and came when his team needed it the most.

Ganguly's 50 came after Shalabh Srivastava had Mandeep Singh caught by Brett Lee at mid-on as Kolkata Knight Riders lost their second wicket.

This was Srivastava's second wicket in as many overs.

Manvinder Bisla took a superb catch at deep square leg as Kolkata Knight Riders lost Chris Gayle in the third over.

Gayle mistimed a pull off a Srivastava delivery and Bisla running from deep mid-wicket, dived and plucked the ball out of thin air to take the catch just in front of the ropes.

Gayle's dismissal brought some relief to the Kings XI camp as the swashbuckling batsman had already hit 3 fours in his 12-ball 14 after Ganguly won the toss and elected to bat.

Kolkata dropped Murali Kartik, Ishant Sharma, Chetweshwar Pujara, Harpreet Singh and brought in Ajit Agarkar, Manoj Tiwary, Iqbal Abdulla and David Hussey.

Punjab dropped S Sreesanth, Mohammad Kaif and Juan Theron and brought in Vikramjeet Malik, Karan Goel and Brett Lee.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Sourav Ganguly (Capt.), Chris Gayle, Manoj Tiwary, Mandeep Singh, David Hussey, Angelo Mathews, Wriddhiman Saha, Shane Bond, Ajit Agarkar, Ashok Dinda, Iqbal Abdulla.

Kings XI Punjab: Kumar Sangakkara (Capt.), Ravi Bopara, Manvinder Bisla, Yuvraj Singh, Mahela Jayawardene, Irfan Pathan, Piyush Chawla, Shalabh Srivastava, Brett Lee, Karan Goel, Vikramjeet Malik.

Shah Rukh Khan Tweets about Ra.One

Filming on anticipated superhero action flick Ra.One got underway on March 24th, and the main thing on star Shah Rukh Khan’s mind, according to his Twitter account, was making sure he was on set on time for the first day:

have to go now. first day at shoot & all. let me impress my ppl that i land up on time..at least on the first day.

Ra.One is expected to break new ground in terms of special effects and stunts for a Bollywood film, with Shah Rukh Khan taking on the avatar of Shekar, a software engineer who as a video-game hero must battle Ra.One, a techno monster he creates. In order to save mankind, Khan’s character is rumoured to have to take to the skies and fight with ten maniacal villains that represent the ten heads of the Hindu demon king Raavan. For his superhero role in the film Shah Rukh has also been working hard to regain his famous six pack abs, first displayed in Om Shanti Om.

Joining Khan in the confirmed cast of the film, helmed by director Anubhav Sinha, are Kareena Kapoor, reportedly playing a ‘trendy’ mother character, and Arjun Rampal as the villain of the piece. Vishal-Shekar will be providing a rocking soundtrack and R’n’B star Akon has already visited India to collaborate on a track for the film.

Previous reports had stated that Jackie Chan and Aishwarya Rai would also have roles in the film – both rumours that Shahrukh has laid to rest through his Twitter account.

no jackie chan in ra.1 thats final now

no film yet with aish.

Following the completion of the first day’s filming on Ra.One SRK once again took to his favourite social networking site to share his thoughts on the day’s work:

first day...first shot. fantastic unit...nikolai,neha,andy,spiro,amy,sabu cyril & jeff. kareena was a pleasure always so gung ho about work.

missed my workout...was too happy that we started the film. cant wait to show u all the stuff..but will have to wait sometime for the site.

gung ho means eager & enthusiastic. everytime i face camera i realise there is no place i rather be than acting.love it so even after 20 yrs.

I love people liking me: Shahrukh Khan

King Khan Shahrukh Khan loves his celebrity status and admits that he would never want to live without it even for a moment.

Shahrukh said, "I don't want to be anonymous..I'm very honest about that. I love being recognised. I love people liking me, I love the fact that people scream when I go out, I think I'll miss all that when it's taken away, and I don't even think about it.

"I think that's why I work harder every year, every day, every month and every moment. I'm not standing and counting the people outside my house, but I don't want them to lessen," he added.

Shahrukh made his film debut with Deewana (1992) and since then, he has been part of numerous commercially successful and earned critical acclaim for many of his performances.

Shahrukh sorred his popularity high with blockbusters like 'Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge', 'Baazigar', 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai', 'Darr', 'Pardes', 'Dil Toh Pagal Hai', 'Chak De', 'Main Hoon Na', 'Om Shanti Om', and of latest 'My Name Is khan'.

Shahrukh won thirteen Filmfare Awards for his work in Indian films, seven of which got nominated in the Best Actor category.

Star Plus shells out Rs15 cr for TV rights of My Name is Khan

The channel is said to have paid approximately Rs15 crore for the satellite television rights of the film, co-produced by Red Chillies Entertainment and Dharma Productions.

Star Plus, the flagship Hindi entertainment channel from Star India Pvt. Ltd, will soon bring Shah Rukh Khan’s latest film My Name is Khan to the small screen. The channel is said to have paid approximately Rs15 crore for the satellite television rights of the film, co-produced by actor Shah Rukh Khan’s company Red Chillies Entertainment Pvt. Ltd and Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions Pvt. Ltd.

Anupam Vasudev, executive vice-president (marketing) at Star, confirmed that the channel had acquired television broadcast rights for the film, but he refused to comment on the price paid for the rights.

However, according to a senior executive at a rival channel who specializes in buying films for the small screen, Star forked out Rs15 crore for My Name is Khan. Incidentally, Star’s sister company Fox Star Studios had bought the marketing and distribution rights of My Name is Khan, reportedly for Rs100 crore.

Vasudev maintained Star Plus expected the film to do well since it was a new and a big-budget release. “Paa (featuring Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan) has delivered 2-2.5 in ratings, which is a reasonably good performance,” he said.

Attracting viewers: A still from the movie My Name is Khan. The TV screening of a big Bollywood film could trigger a surge of 30-40 gross rating points for the channel during the week in which it is aired.

Attracting viewers: A still from the movie My Name is Khan. The TV screening of a big Bollywood film could trigger a surge of 30-40 gross rating points for the channel during the week in which it is aired.

According to L.S. Krishnan, president of media specialist agency Radar at the Mudra Group, My Name is Khan is a good acquisition for Star, and should get enough traction. “An average film gets a rating of 2 and 3, which is considered good. I would expect a rating of 4-5 for My Name is Khan,” he said.

Based on his discussions with Star India executives, a media buyer, who requested anonymity, said that the channel was charging Rs3 crore for 300 seconds of airtime, for the title sponsorship of the film. “Ten seconds of advertising inventory around the film is going for as much as Rs10 lakh. If I had that kind of money, why wouldn’t I put it on the Indian Premier League (IPL)?” he asked, referring to the ongoing IPL T20 series that is hawking advertising inventory at a premium.

He said the steep tariff on the inventory is unjustified as the film was not a huge commercial success.

Meanwhile, Mona Jain, chief operating officer of VivaKi Exchange, the centralized buying unit of French advertising and communications firm Publicis Groupe SA, said the channel could justify the high ad rates if it telecasts the films several times. “The movie will spark off an interest, but there ought to be multiple airings in a single day. Just like when Star Movies got the rights to James Cameron film Titanic and it was shown four times in a day. It makes sense for both the channel and the sponsors associated with it,” she said.

To be sure, the race among Hindi entertainment channels for big films has been heating up. Star Plus recently acquired the TV rights to other new films such as Rann, London Dreams, Aladdin and De Dana Dhan. Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd’s Hindi channel Colors, meanwhile, won the TV rights to releases such as Kaminey and Kurbaan.

The TV screening of a big Bollywood film could trigger a spike of almost 30-40 GRPs (gross rating points) for the channel during the week in which it is aired. That has often helped channels to displace competition in the viewership ranking.

In the period from 14-20 March, TAM Media Research Pvt. Ltd’s TV viewership data shows Star on the top with a 24% channel share, Colors at No. 2 with a 23% share and Zee TV in the third place with a 20% share.

Shahrukh and I share amazing chemistry: Kareena Kapoor

Kareena Kapoor is paired with Shahrukh Khan in his latest home production. She was also his co-star in his second production Asoka. On the second day of shooting, she gets nostalgic...

They are paired together in his home production Ra.1 directed by Anubhav Sinha. The last film they had acted opposite each other was another SRK's home production - Asoka (2001).

She squeals excitedly from Goa, "After Asoka, we worked together in K3G but we weren't paired romantically. I did a song with him in Don and Billu. Ra.1 is his most ambitious project yet.”

She continues, "We share an amazing chemistry. When Shah Rukh and I shot yesterday the spark was there - it was as if no time had passed since Asoka. And it's been almost a decade."

Not surprised

Kareena says that she wasn't surprised when SRK offered her the role in Ra.1. "He spoke to me about the part when we were shooting for Marjaani song in Billu. He told me he was working on a super hero flick and was very excited about it. Then one day he called me and asked me if I would be a part of his film. When Anubhav narrated the script, I realised it had all the making of a blockbuster. I am really excited about my role. Though it's a fantasy film I have no stunts to do in the film. My character is that of a married woman and have a different look in the film."

Gush factor

She adds that she hasn't noticed any changes in Shahrukh's working style even after a decade, "He is hard working and very encouraging. I have never seen him sitting and doing nothing. Either he's discussing something with the director or cameraman or scriptwriter. He's so energetic and involved, that for me it's a huge effort to match up to his energy levels."

While Shahrukh remains one of her personal favourites amongst the Khans (SRK, Salman, Aamir, Saif) Kareena refuses to name one as her all-time favourite actor. "They all have truly unique and diverse personas (SRK's is magnetic, Aamir is a genius, Saif has an international Hollywood appeal and Salman is spontaneous) so it's unfair to choose any one as my favourite. The Khans are ruling the industry today and I am lucky to have worked with all of them."

His chivalry

Bebo is clearly impressed with her hero, and admires him most for his chivalry, "I remember his chivalry when I first met him when I was nine years old (at one of Karisma's shows in Muscat) and he is still the same. He is so protective and caring towards women that is hard not to be charmed. From a wide-eyed nine-year-old to playing his wife - it's been great to know Shahrukh. It's fun to be on a set with him. I feel at home on his sets as I can say and do anything that I want. He tells me that I look the best in his movies and I agree with that. He takes extra special care in everything and I feel so touched."

Today Kareena will take a chartered flight from Goa to Delhi to launch a new cell phone. The phone will also launch her interactive fan groups on Twitter and Facebook where Kareena will be seen chatting with her fans on the websites once a week.

Bal Thackeray has been very gracious to me: Shahrukh Khan

He's known as King Khan of Bollywood and is one of India's hottest actors and producers. Shahrukh Khan, the global superstar explains why the time has come for developing nations like India to assert themselves internationally, discusses the furore surrounding the premiere of his film My Name is Khan and talks about his hopes for his Kolkata Knight Riders team in this season's Indian Premier League.

It's fantastic to have you on the show, you are easily Bollywood's biggest star these days. For those watching it might have seemed easy. You are so big they call you King Khan. Is this the way you saw you life panning when you started off as an actor?

Not at all, I still don't believe it. I still think it's like a dream. But when I started off, I never thought I would do anything else but wake up in the morning and work. But the only thing that's added to it, and I tell this to everyone, is that I still wake up in the morning and work but the only odd thing my kids find is that I'm a man and I wear make-up.

We're doing this interview at your house and there are often throngs of fans waiting outside trying to get a glimpse of you. As they wait to see what crumb you might throw them, is that kind of a weird feeling - the immense scrutiny that you get.

I feel very embarrassed and odd. I don't even call them fans. I think they are people who appreciate what I do. My wife tells me on the weekends, especially because there's a crowd - a thousand people outside. So I go for five minutes and wave, then the cops get very angry because the traffic stops so they shout at me. So I'm really embarrassed. I feel really odd but I think when people come to visit me at house then I should be sort of kind to them and say hello to them. The scrutiny part, there was a time, I have a sense of humour and my family feels I should stop it because it's gets me into trouble. I say things and maybe people don't understand it or they give me more importance than to think, I am flippant. I should not be flippant. I should be more serious. But I feel I've never been like that and I just want to have fun and say things that are easy going but many a time, it's not taken like this and everything is scrutinized.

One of things that got you a lot of headlines recently was that as Muslims it was shame that the IPL hadn't picked up any Pakistani players for this season and you own an IPL team, The Kolkata Knight Riders. Your comments caused an absolute firestorm particularly with Hindu Nationalists, did you anticipate the furore those words would cause.

You know I did say in the interview, you know I do hope I don't get into trouble for saying this before I said that. But I didn't think it would go to this extent. It became strange. Strange things were said. And I said "the bottom line in my country is that, there is a certain amount of freedom of speech which we also restrain unto. We are not completely outspoken, we don't do strange things - at least I don't and most of the people I know, don't. So there's freedom of speech. This was my point of view.

They were burning effigies of you in the streets, some people I mean, people are absolutely going nuts about you.

Some guy had a slipper in his hands and was hitting poster. I want to find him. I want to meet up with him. He should try it when I'm standing in front. Not on a piece of paper.

The main Hindu Nationalist party, Shiv Sena, obviously took what you had to say extremely badly, they were the ones who campaigned against at this time and threatened to disrupt the premiere of your movie My Name Is Khan. Were you worried at all about the safety of yourself and you family and your fans?

I'll be honest. I know Balasaheb Thackeray very well. He's also been very gracious to me. I know Uddhav Thackeray, he's been very helpful. I know them very well. We've never had ... and I've said this many times...

The top level of the Shiv Sena...

They meet me, I go over to their house, they're really gracious and wonderful with me, and we've never had ideological discussions, maybe they have a different ideology for the party that they run, but I'm not a political person so we've never sat down and "so, why is it like..", so we've never had this discussion. If there was genuinely a misunderstanding about what I said, which is quite possible, pick up the phone and I'd explain it, it would have been "oh, okay, that's what you meant? Sorry. We thought you meant this. You don't mean that." That's the way it should have been but I just think it became bigger than the personal relationship we share.

Your team the Kolkata Knight Riders hasn't had a terrible successful track record in the past couple of years, what do you think are the prospects for it to do better this time around?

The thing that I say, you've been very kind when you say they haven't been doing very well. The first thing - and I'm a little philosophical about this - is that I have to accept and the team has to accept, the truth is we haven't done well at all. We've accepted that. The second part is, it's very easy to do better when you're in the eighth position with only eight teams you can't go worse than this. So we are going to do better. I think what we tried to do is get the Indian part of the team stronger. I think the senior guys like Ishant and Ganguly, they just need to get into the groove. I think the main thing the coach and Dada have brought in this time is the fact we training the young guys just to make them enjoy themselves. 20/20 needs to be enjoyed, when you see a Matthew Hayden play, he's enjoying himself. I sense that. You have to enjoy it. You can't just have the test match pressure on your head. Or the one-day pressure on your head. You need to go and enjoy yourself. Have a good time. So yesterday when the team was leaving, somebody turned around, one of the managers and said we have to win only seven or eight and if we only lose five. And I said we can't lose anymore. We've lost too many. We've lost for the next four years. So I think we'll do better. I think we will do much better this year.

Let's discuss movies now, and specifically My Name Is Khan in which you play an autistic Muslim in America post 9/11. The film's done great and particularly well in Islamic countries, is that your intention. Were you trying to appeal to most of the Muslim audience?

The fact that, you said it so well and it was a convoluted plot, an autistic Muslim man in America post 9/11, when you put it so simply it sounds so complicated. No, you make a film, normally for a universal audience, the kind of films that I do especially I would like everyone to see them. Within them, I'll try to put in something different that appeals maybe, if you do hockey, maybe the hockey guys and girls will like it more. You do it about a bad guy recently, so when you do that thing and the youngsters like all the bad stuff, cool stuff. So, they like it. But the intention was never like that. I do remember the wonderful distributor Fox, they were going to say we'll release in UAE, and we'll release it in Morocco like this, and Indonesia and Malaysia and I said "why are they doing it so specifically". Maybe they understood the spot much better than we did because yes, it's record breaking in the Muslim countries, I never thought it would have been like that. I really thought the film was about humanity.

Yeah, this was the latest collaboration between you and director Karan Johar, you've worked together on countless movies but you're also best mates away from the set. What is it do you think that some sort of magic formula you have seems that helps you two work together so well?

I think the first thing is that's trust. I gave him a book the "Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night" and I said you should make a film with a little kid who's autistic and a story of a father and a son. Obviously assuming if you took me as a father and a little child who's autistic. And then he came up with the script with me as autistic with this whole plot. And I'm like "this is a little strange" because when you make a film with me, as far as Karan and me are concerned, we normally make a little more commercially viable films. But he said no, this is what I want to do. So I trust him, I trust him completely.

One of the things that got a lot of publicity for the movie was when you were detained by US immigration which in a way which mirrors a scene in My Name Is Khan when you say "my name is Khan and I'm not a terrorist" to have it play out like that in real life, there was a lot of press on it, what was it like from your standpoint?

It happens to me every month, whenever I travel to the western world because of the name. But it's not only me. There are another 75 people in that line. It happens to my kids. And I say this again and again. I have no issue. I have no issue with it personally because this is the world that we have created. This is how it is. I think what happened that day was that it took a little longer. This was at the immigration for the first time - normally it happens at the security. I think the processes just went wrong and it took a couple of hours. I had to call the Indian Consulate because I had a meeting in Atlantic City, if I got caught up here, there was no point me going all the way to America. So I asked "can you get me out of here", so I think it just went out to the press and we have reached a stage in India and I think rightly so, when a developing nation is on the threshold on coming out and Inshallah taking over the whole world - in terms of economics, in terms of politics, in terms of business, I think certainly we have a voice. We've been pushed, all developing nations, I'm not just saying India and suddenly we have a voice in the world which matters and sometimes that voice is a little louder than it should be. So anytime anything goes wrong with Indians anywhere in the world, you notice all Indians get up. Not on the outside. It happened when the Shiv Sena thing happened - all the Indians came and said "no, this is wrong". I'm really glad we have a voice like that, and that's what happened "they stopped Shah Rukh, how dare they" and I was joking about it until about half a day actually, and I even joked that when the American Hollywood actresses come that I should be given the right to frisk them in India. I want to be the first guy. It's only fair.

You did say you wanted My Name is Khan to be a global hit like Slumdog Millionaire. You could have been in Slumdog Millionaire. You got offered the role of the quiz show host but you turned it down and Anil Kapoor got it. Do you beat yourself over that decision?

No, I really wanted that film to be made. I'd read the Indian novel. I'd bought it. I wanted to make it myself but an Indian film. When I read the script, I knew they'd made a much better film than I could ever.

Why didn't you want part of that fantastic film then?

One, I'm not offered many great films; honestly, I don't have an agent for stuff in the west. Also, I'd hosted "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire". Here the host was a bit of a fixer. I only fixed "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" in a way that I felt bad for the people and I'll like "listen why don't you retire now, don't don't, this looks like a difficult question. So you've got half a million dollars, go back relax" then they say "no we want to play" and I'm like "can we go for a break". I used to feel really bad and I'm not allowed to say anything but I know this question's a little difficult young man. So, I just felt that I had so much fun doing it personally that I didn't want to be on the side where I take the guy into the loo and say "I can fix this for you". I didn't want to be the bad guy because I won't do it like that.

Shahrukh Khan The ‘Soccer’ mania in real life!

What is the one thing that SRK fans don’t know about him? What is the favorite game of sport that the King of bollywood actually enjoys playing? Well the answer to all those questions would boil down to one answer, and that is ‘Soccer’!

Yeah, you read that right. Shahrukh Khan is an avid lover of the outdoor sport and has in his heart of hearts always enjoyed playing that game.

In many of his films, he has been seen promoting games like Basketball in the film’Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,’ to ‘Hockey’ in the film ‘Chak De,’ etc, and in real life, he shoed his love for cricket by buying up a team Franchisee even.

But, in his deep down heart of hearts, he just can’t resist a game of soccer. Reportedly, whenever King Khan is in Mumbai, he is seen on Sunday playing on the grounds of the American School in Bandra. The fun loving Khan also takes his son Aryan along, as some say, he wants his son to develop an interest in the game and take it up professionally in the future.

Shahrukh has a few faithful friends from the industry, who are also big lovers of the game. So, on the field one would also find actors like Chunky Pandey, Dino Morea and the young dashing director friend of Farhan Akhtar Ritesh Sidhwani, sweating it out in the field with the Baadshah of bollywood. So, next time you are wondering what SRK would be doing on a Sunday, just think-‘Soccer’!

Shahrukh Khan to drape his sexy body with 10 million bucks

Shahrukh Khan, over the course of his glittering career, has been bestowed with many titles such as ‘King Khan’, ‘Bollywood Badshah’ and his self-proclaimed ‘I am the best.’ And his fees that began with a paltry sum in his 1st film ‘Deewana’ has spiralled over the last two decades to reach a figure that spells awe. If you were employed to count the number of Re 1 coins that his wealth is worth of, then probably, it would take you a lifetime.

But, it would indeed appear shocking if I tell you that a single suit of his will cost a princely Rs 1 crore (10 million rupees)- a sum of money so huge none of you have ever even dreamt of. And he will roam about wearing them.

As per reports pouring in from the tinselworld, it is believed that his next flick Ra. 1 which is a science-fiction (in which SRK plays a superhero) will see him donning his superhero suit that will cost Rs 1 crore. The costume has been specially designed keeping the adrenaline-pumping action sequences in mind. The materials and fabrics used in this special costume have been designed in Los Angeles.

So, wait for a few months and then you will be witness to a superhero SRK flying in to the silver screen draping his body with 1 crore.