Shah Rukh Khan with Anushka Sharma in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

Doing an Aditya Chopra film, is it any different from other films?

Hopefully not, qualitatively (laughs)! It’s great fun working with friends... I have made some fine films with Adi, Karan, Farah… I enjoy working with them and I end up working mostly with them because every few years they intend to make a film. Adi hasn’t made a film for some time. So I have only worked with him as a producer over the last few years. It’s nice… because as a friend I want him to direct more films than just produce them. We have done some nice films together… Dilwale, Mohabbatein… even Chak De! he was involved with. It’s always a good experience shooting together. In fact, we shot Rab Ne much faster than what we thought. We thought it would take us 70 days but we finished shooting in 49-50 days. Obviously we were having a good time. Yes, Rab Ne is a special film.

Adi and you created Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Does that play a part in your relationship, in every film that you do together?

No, I don’t think that plays any role because when we were making Dilwale, we didn’t realise we were making Dilwale. We just did a film we wanted to tell the story of. It was never intended or thought of by us as one of the biggest hits ever. There was no pressure. But yes, people do expect us to come together and give a fine film again. People have given us too much love and respect. We cannot let that love and respect down. But we have also grown up in the last 15-16 years we have known each other and we do realise that we are in a stage where we can present to the audience what we like and hope that they like it. Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi… it’s very personal, it’s very different…. I was quite surprised that Adi would make a film like this after eight years. It’s a small film about ordinary people… and it’s very funny… it’s like a very small Hrishikesh Mukherjee kind of a film. Adi doesn’t normally like comedies… So that’s a surprise. Because it makes you laugh, it makes you cry. It’s an interesting two-and-a-half hours of watching.

Have you and Adi deconstructed Raj of DDLJ and replaced him with the goofy Surinder?

It is not a conscious effort that we sit down and work out a strategy. Whenever we make a commercial film, the popular perception is that it’s going to be of a similar kind. But we have never thought of it. We always think that we are telling a new story and we are trying to create characters which are newer every time… whether it was Dilwale or Veer-Zaara, where I play a 55-year-old man, or Chak De!, where I play a hockey coach. Actually if you look at the films we have done together… Darr, Dilwale, maybe giving Dil To Pagal Hai a miss, Veer-Zaara, Chak De!… actually we have never tried to stick to one role model that we have created.

But yes, I am seeing some reports that Shah Rukh is doing this because he is getting older and he is reinventing himself. It’s not like that. When you make a film, you try to belong to the world of that film. The world of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi requires the story of an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation. If you look around 99.99 per cent of our films have ordinary people trying to overcome extraordinary situations… sometimes it’s heroic, sometimes it’s romantic, sometimes it’s just dramatic. It’s nothing new in that way… but yeah maybe I haven’t done something like this in the time gone by. Because I am doing this with Adi it may seem like we are trying to deconstruct someone. We are actually just trying to construct a character for a story.

THE COMMON MAN

Isn’t it ironic that Aditya Chopra had advised you to play the larger-than-life romantic hero?

When Adi was narrating the story to me, he told me that the heroes we have been playing on screen have to go through a change every 10-12 years. Also it depends on the age of the heroes, of course. I can’t really be the Raj or Rahul of Dilwale Dulhania any more. I don’t know whether I am comfortable doing it anymore. I haven’t done it for a while even though the tag stays with me. Anyway, Adi’s theory is that there was a hero in the 1970s and 1980s who was anti-establishment. The 1990s hero was yuppy, funny and loving. And maybe the hero of 2000 or late 2000 needs to be the ordinary man again. Because the middle class is rising with more education. We need to look into ourselves more than ever... we need to live our small world well and the big world will take care of itself. We don’t need to be going out to change the world. We need to try and be happy in our small little classroom. If you really ask me, Surinder is the most identifiable hero I have ever played. I am sure every time a girl looks at Rahul or Raj, she turns around and tells her boyfriend, why can’t you be like that. Men have an expression problem about love. So maybe after this film, guys will turn around and say if I can’t express, it’s ok… you can make out I love you. It’s a hero who is comfortable being himself. Just what a common man is. A common man, an ordinary man is content being where he is, he doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

For the Shah Rukh Khan to be a common man, was it difficult?

When people see me from the outside… the work I have done… there is this huge wall of extraordinary around me. I don’t see this wall at all. I have not constructed it. It is the perception you have. I am basically a very simple, normal guy from a middle-class background, who is slightly educated… who thinks like a common father or a common husband or a common friend. The work that I do is also very common but the results look very uncommon. If you meet a cricketer, they just go and hit the ball with a bat… whether it’s a Sourav Ganguly or a Sachin Tendulkar… actually what they are doing is what they used to do in the galis — hit the ball. Even with a big businessman like Dhirubhai Ambani or Ratan Tata, you meet them and you realise they talk of such simple stuff, where is the extraordinariness around them? The work some times makes you look like that. I have no issues playing a common man because I truly believe I am a common man. In my personal life I am immensely common.

How would you rate Anushka Sharma among the new girls you have worked with?

See it’s unfair to rate anyone. I can only praise them. I tend to be biased because they are acting in my film and I am kind of responsible for their future. I always believe that a new person brings in newness, freshness, a new angle to the film. Like Deepika did or the Chak De! girls did or when I worked with Rani or Sonali Bendre. They all have given different kinds of inputs to the films. So I can only be biased towards Anushka. I think she is excellent. I think she makes the film very believable. It really helps me. I can only wish her all the best. She is a really young girl, starting out... I can’t pressurise her by rating her on a scale of 1 to 10. They don’t have a scale now. Inshallah, after this film she will start building her scale. I am sure people will like her a lot. The film will be nice because of her… I truly believe that.

THE ENTERTAINER

What is your take on the timing of the release? Would you have ideally pushed it back?

We started the film on May 15 and we were always rushing to release the film on the 12th of December. We announced the release date much before and we obviously didn’t imagine such a horrific thing to happen to Mumbai, to India… Having said that the only thing we stopped doing was publicising the film in the last couple of weeks. We didn’t feel up to it. We felt it was completely wrong. Also there is a huge amount of resilience in human beings and also in the Indian people. Life goes on… I just hope… what I basically do, which is to entertain people and give them a good time… hopefully this film will offer some kind of a diversion from this depression. It will not take away the sadness but it may offer you some break from it, it may make you realise that life is a mix of good things, happy things, sad things, dangerous things and sudden things. So the entertainment part I can provide I am just doing that. That’s the service I provide. That’s all I can do. A lot of people have told us that maybe this is not the right time… people will not come… but apparently the reports are quite nice. And if enough people don’t come, that’s ok… I truly appreciate the sentiments of people at a time like this.

Do you think Rab Ne has the steam to run like a DDLJ?

You know big films, great films, classic films, they get made… They get a life of their own. Every film that I have made I have never thought of it running how much. I have always believed that they would be a good time for the audiences. Some of them do extremely well. Some of them do ok. Some of them die out. I have experienced all of them. Some of the ones which died out, I have truly believed they are fantastic films.

Don’t you have a gut feeling?

Gut feeling wise Rab Ne is a very fine film. It is one of the better films I have done. It is a bit patronising and strange for me to say that. But it’s one of the nicest films Adi has made. I have seen it three times, which I normally don’t do… see my own films. It’s very funny. It’s very entertaining. I am hoping people will take back the character of Surinder Sahni home. I do feel we have a good film on our hand. But how well it does, how many weeks it runs can only be decided by the employers who commissioned us to make the film — the audience.

We get to see so little of you now. This is your first release this year. Why have you slowed down?

There were two films that I was supposed to do this year but the producers decided not to do them with me. One was Robot (Rajnikanth is doing it) and one was Idiots (Aamir Khan is doing it). Suddenly my dates got free and you can’t decide on a new film overnight. Khan (Karan’s My Name is Khan) got delayed to December, which I am starting now. In between I did Billo Barber which I am producing but I only have a very small role in it. Irrfan Khan is playing the lead. Then I did Paanchvi Pass, which took away a month-and-a-half. Then there was the IPL and Kolkata Knight Riders. So March, April and May, I was busy with television and cricket. I took a break in June and July. So I effectively started working in end-July. To do two big films in these few months is good. Ok, I am one film short. But that’s ok…

What are your plans with Kolkata Knight Riders for the next season?

Everything will be set up by Jan. We will be working more on the administrative part. Obviously keeping the business prospects in mind. It’s an expensive proposition. The idea is to do as good as last year and try and provide better entertainment and better cricket. We start a bit earlier this time. So we are better organised in terms of administration. Matthew Mott is the new coach with John Buchanan behind him. The teams are more or less the same… there is another auction. So we have to go into that with a strategy. Inshallah we will make sure that we get all the players that are in the team to play. We have to get Gayle and McCullum to stick around, Dada is there, Ricky comes, Ishant stays fit, Agarkar is fit, Umar Gul comes… and maybe this time we can get a couple of weeks with the team before the matches start. The team can get together as a team.

When are you coming to Calcutta next?

I am leaving now for America (for My Name is Khan) for 40 days. I was supposed to come but it didn’t happen. I think I will now be coming in end-January. We have a camp… We are running a virtual academy where we are trying to get newer players, to hone them and pick them up for the team. There will be a two-week camp some time in January and then in February. We would try and do them in Calcutta if we get the proper grounds.

Pratim D. Gupta
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