HAPPY SHAHRUKH DAY!!!! The one day of the year, and the blog, that is 100% dedicated to my beloved SRK. Let your fan flag fly!!!
Ask me anything Shahrukh related! What was his first movie? Where did he grow up? What do I think he should do next in his career? Heck, ask yourselves this question too! What do you think he should do next? What is your favorite part of his biographical story?
Now, question for you: how are you celebrating Shahrukh Day this year?
I started my celebrations last night, driving around and dropping off Shahrukh Day presents at my friends’ houses. Today I am going to have a regular work day, and then pick up a frozen Sara Lee cake (just didn’t feel like cooking this year, SRK will understand) and go home. Tonight I am having a virtual movie party, Om Shanti Om, with my friends. I will have cake, they will have their presents from last night, all will be happiness!
dontcallitbollywood 
Do you recall a particular moment when you fell madly in love (as a devoted fan) with SRK?
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I do, it is very distinctive. 16 years ago I went to a showing of DDLJ at a local art theater. I’d seen a couple Indian films already but hadn’t really loved them. I didn’t love DDLJ either, I remember when Shahrukh is first introduced I thought “him? Really? That’s the hero?” He was so ugly! Pudgy and weird looking with a big nose, blech! I continued to dislike him more and more as the film went on, he was just so pushy and needy and overactive. I could see how the scriptwriter was setting me up to like him, those moments of redemption and stuff, but it just didn’t work. And then just before the interval he says good-bye to Kajol at the train station, she asks if he is coming to her wedding, and he just says “no”, and then shakes his head and walks backward, looking at her. And I completely fell in love! All at once, in a second, going from “eh, he’s okay” to “I am in love!”
On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 9:50 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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YAY! Let’s go!
– Which of the actresses he has worked with in the past would you like to see him work again (I know you like Juhi, so it needs to be another name).
– Speaking of actresses, today I saw several, from Parineeti to Shilpa Shetty, wishing Shah Rukh Khan happy birthday on social media, but I kept thinking about Priyanka Chopra’s silence. This is my first year as a Shah Rukh Khan fan, so can you tell me if she never posts anything? Do you think that, offline, she sends him at least an SMS?
– Speaking of Priyanka, do you think that one day, like her, he will regret/publicly apologize for endorsing a fairness cream?
– Finally, what did you think of him in today’s video?
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Yaaaay!
-He has such great chemistry with basically all his co-stars, so there are a lot I want him to work with again! Preity would be interesting, they always had good chemistry and she has matured into such a strong confident screen presence, even more so than when she started with him. Along those same lines, Mandira Bedi would be really interesting! In DDLJ she was just a shy newcomer, but she’s been a TV broadcaster for a while now, and done some really interesting character parts, I’d love to see them together again.
-Ugh, PC! They have a messy public relationship, I am sure if she sent him a message it would be because she wanted the publicity, and I am sure they have no private communication. Here’s a post with more of a rundown on that mess: https://dontcallitbollywood.com/2018/06/21/hindi-film-101-priyanka-chopra-and-shahrukh-khan/
-I think he may apologize for promoting the fairness cream, but he has such a long history with the company at this point that there is a lot of loyalty built in, I think they might have been one of the first brands to approach him.
-I liked him in today’s video! I think he looked relaxed and healthy. didn’t love the ponytail though.
On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 11:27 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I loved his video. I hope he felt the genuine outpouring of love for him on social media. it’s good for him to be reminded how adored he is.
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SRK was on the Burj Khalifa again this year. And this time, he was there to see the tribute himself. Karan Johar posted a video. SRK is there with his extended family and KJo, Manish Malhotra and Natasha Poonawala are also there with him.
Karan’s video with SRK
The full tribute:
and SRK’s own post:
I’m thinking SRK must be a little relieved that he doesn’t have to deal with fans this year and can hang out and do his own thing like a normal person. He looks happy and relaxed.
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Thank you! This does seem really nice. I think the past few years he’s had that nice party at the vacation house, but he always had to fly out later than everyone else because he had to “work” and go out and greet the fans while all his friends were already having fun. But this year he actually gets to enjoy his own party.
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Another one! Hey Ram counts in the “Shah Rukh Khan marathon”? I was watching it right now, but I confess I’m finding it quite boring (and disturbing)…
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I find Hey Ram disturbing right wing propaganda, so no 🙂 Ignoring that one.
On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 3:46 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh, thanks for freeing me! So now I can say that I officially watched all of Shah Rukh Khan’s movies!
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YES! I never count Hey Ram.
On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 4:18 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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But, tell me something: the movie is really like this? 😲 Because I watched about 1:30:00 something. I read that Sharukh has acquired the rights for a remake.
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We are getting right up to the line of the “No Politics” rules, so I’m gonna give a pretty general answer. The point of the movie is to show our protragonist’s descent into extremism before eventually realizing the error of his ways (thanks to his friend Shahrukh’s sacrifice). My issue, which is pretty universal among critics I think, is that the descent into extremism is shown as a logical response to persecution. So, like watching someone join the Neo Nazis because a Jewish person bought out his mortgage and threw him out of his home. It’s saying “this could happen to anyone, it’s not that bad, it’s an understandable mistake, and really it’s the fault of the Jews for taking his home in the first place”. Not “on the face of it this organization and this way of thinking is pure Evil”.
Shahrukh agreed to be in the film because he deeply respected the producer/star Kamal Haasan. And Kamal himself is generally a very openminded liberal person. But somehow the story they told became a story of forgiving hate crimes and trying to understand hate criminals, instead of condemning them. I have heard for years that Shahrukh bought the remake rights, but I have to wonder, if that story is true, if he partly bought them just to make sure no one else would try to replicate this film.
On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 4:56 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I understood (your explanation below). Thank you for your answer.
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Hey Ram! right wing propaganda??? How?? It’s one of the most pro Gandhi films ever. In fact, one where the Congress and the BJP protested jointly.
Also easily the best film he has been part of in his career. Not just my opinion, but also his and even Rani Mukerji’s..
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Do you actually think Srk is good looking be honest or do you just think he has a charming personality which makes him attractive. Also I’m not really a Srk fan fan but if he happens to come on tv then ill watch him so just curious what’s going on with his movie life anything after zero?
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Objectively SRK is definitely not handsome. His features are not symetrical, nor do they fit the sort of proportions that are idealized. But I also think it is more than just his personality, something about his face is intriguing and pleasing. And as he has aged, he has gotten more attractive. Largely I think his bone structure has come out more and his face has become more symetrical because of it.
After Zero he took a planned break in order to really think about what his next project should be. He had a 5 year stretch of movie after movie after movie. He had taken similar breaks before after little bursts of activity, and during this same time his daughter was leaving to start college and a lot of personal life changes were happening. He also produced two movies through Red Chillies during this “break” and seemed to have been pretty heavily involved with them, so it wasn’t like he was doing nothing, just not acting. I suspect he was about to announce a film and start filming when the pandemic hit, and of course now everything is indefinitely delayed.
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My question is what exactly are these “script changes” he’s accused of making? For example, I know Rohit Shetty had to make changes to Dilwale because of Kajol and Rahul Dholakia’s Raees was way different initially. A common feature of most of these films, including Ra.One is how they have an inconsistent tone in play, like how logic goes for a toss in Fan’s second half that really affects the experience.
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I know from what I’ve read that everyone talks about narrating a script to him and him giving notes and then they go off and work based on his suggestions and back and forth and back and forth. And on set he will do things like say “I think this scene would play better if it didn’t have any dialogue”. I do think he has lost a bit of his script sense and it makes him flail a little. Like, worrying something won’t be commercial enough so suggesting they add on this or that. But on the other hand, you also see things like JHMS where clearly he gave no notes at all.
I think maybe it also has to do with how sure the scriptwriter is? So if he says to you “I think you should add in blank blank” and you say “no, I don’t think so, and here is why” I think he would probably listen. Again, based on the end results, Dear Zindagi and any Karan movie and so on, clearly following the vision of their director. But I think Rohit Shetty and Rahul Dholakia and some other directors just weren’t sure enough of their own visions and went along with what he said.
On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 8:17 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Actually even JHMS was said to have undergone a lot of changes, Ali had come with the concept of a suicidal man and SRK wanted it to be light and breezy AFAIK. Even Zero has had changes as per Katrina. I’m curious if we know anything about the exact changes.
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There’s nothing I know of for sure related to any changes, but that’s just me. I haven’t read anything in detail, only general terms. Someone else may know more?
On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 8:44 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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What kind of film do you think SRK is going to do next (your best guess)? And what kind of film would you personally want him to do?
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I was guessing he was going to go big, based on how long he was taking to decide. Like, he was looking for the Big Perfect Magical Wonderful Script. But with COVID messing with filming, I have hope that maybe he will just dash off something without thinking.
You know how sometimes when you are taking a multiple choice test, you go with your first instinct without thinking, and then you have time left over at the end and you go back and rethink your answers and end up choosing wrong? I feel like Shahrukh has a bad habit of doing that. The scripts he picks on impulse and dashes off tend to be way better than the ones he over thinks.
On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 9:24 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I don’t have a question exactly, I just wanted to come bother you: I bought your book and the part where you talk about wanting to replicate feeling like you could fly after seeing DDLJ — how did you capture exactly how I felt after I watched Jodha Akbar? I’d seen a handful of Indian movies before that, but until that day nothing had clicked. After I watched that movie I just…got it.
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Yes! It’s magical! And even after it happens once, you can’t guarantee it happening again. But if 90% of the Indian movies you watch are just okay, and 10% give you that flying feeling, it’s still worth searching for.
On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 10:26 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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That’s been true!
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I had this feeling after watching K3G and Ohm Shanthi Oshana years later! It feels so good, but it’s so hard to find. That’s why I watch every cute-looking, sweet-poster rom-com in every language I can. So far no movie made me feel like those two.
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Yes! Ohm Shanti Oshaana was definitely another one for me. But luckily I’ve had lots of others besides it over the past several years.
On Tue, Nov 3, 2020 at 8:15 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I actually thought of a question: do you think it’s his idea or Gauri’s idea or *their* idea to have Gauri be listed as the producer of so many of his post 2000s movies?
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I think it might be their accountant’s idea 🙂
It’s pretty common for female relatives to be listed as “producers”. My guess is that it is partly just a nice thing to do for your mom/wife/sister/daughter, partly a reflection of reality (wives etc. do sit in on narrations and give opinions on costumes and stuff, like an associate producer would), and partly some kind of legal/financial lowkey advantage.
On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 10:38 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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What’s SRK’s fetish of casting kids of 70s stars as leads in his productions? Akshaye Khanna in Ittefaq, Bobby Deol in Class of ’83 and Jr B in Bob Biswas. Even Emraan Hashmi is a filmy background guy who enjoyed brief success in the ’00s and did Bard of Blood. I half think they’re films that get offered to him and he thinks they’re not big enough for him, but then he has no production with buddy Chunky?
And all that spiel about him being the second richest actor in the world worth $750 million, someone should do a breakdown of that. It seems way too exaggerated.
About his personal life, have you heard those rumors about Arjun Rampal being involved in drugs and courtesy him, Suzanne/PZ/Gauri got into it and Gauri got caught in some airport. It was around the same time as his public meltdown and the whole Priyanka rumors came out. I think it’s a plausible explanation for all that happened around then.
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I don’t see it as a fetish for casting 70s actors, I see it as a business choice to hire has beens. Emraan Hashmi, Bobby, and Akshaye are all folks who were famous in the 90s and early 2000s and now still have some name/face recognition but aren’t above doing a low budget Netflix thing for Red Chillies.
I don’t know where the second richest actor is coming from. The official Forbes list hasn’t had him on it for a few years, and I don’t remember seeing anything directly from his PR about it. Maybe it’s just one of those numbers that starts going around and everyone repeats it? I am sure, like most very wealthy folks, he has rearranged his wealth in such a way that he doesn’t technically have any “money”. Red Chillies is a separate corporate entity, so a lot of his money from IPL and so on is probably passed directly to Red Chillies and SRK himself never touches it.
I could certainly see that Gauri struggled with drugs at some point, a lot of people have. And as you say, it was part of that whole period of confusion in their family. But I would be cautious about believing that kind of rumor, just because it’s the sort of juicy thing people enjoy repeating, you know?
On Tue, Nov 3, 2020 at 3:48 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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For what it’s worth, Forbes lists themselves are not accurate. People like Gisele Bundchen have talked about how they listed her as earning a certain amount of money per year and it ended up getting her audited. She wasn’t earning anything close to what Forbes published. Recently Forbes exposed themselves by writing an article about how the Kardashians kept calling them and asking to be placed higher on the list and then cajoled them into saying Kylie was a billionaire. They invited Forbes to their house and showed them financial papers.. and the papers ended up being forged. These lists are just for entertainment so it’s not worth taking seriously for *any* celebrity.
SRK is definitely richer than most actors though courtesy his cricket team which has a billion plus evaluation – that’s only if he sells it though. He also owns a lot of real estate.
Regarding drugs or whatever- who knows. I don’t take the Indian media seriously in anything especially stuff like blind items. What they did during the SSR case is enough proof of what kind of jokers they are.
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There’s also, with Shahrukh’s finances, the question of liquidity. He owns real estate all over the world which has a varying value, he owns Red Chillies which has a whole bunch of sub companies, and he’s got the Meer Foundation. If you add together the value of all of those it would be super high. But if he has to, like, pay a ransom for one of his kids (knock on wood, never gonna happen) he could only put his hands on a small amount of actual money. Which comes up with things like when he tries to fund a movie. In theory he’s got loads of money, but when he has to pay a bill to the film lab by Friday, he has to rush around and pick up a wedding or something to hav ethe cash on hand.
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Yeah, he would probably be cash poor like a lot of rich people. By this time, he would also be routing his finances through his various companies and not under his own individual name. That’s why the highest individual tax payers end up being actors and sportsmen and not the actual wealthy people like the Ambanis.
The truly wealthy don’t earn or pay taxes under their own name – it’s done through the corporations they own. That’s mainly the reason why Akshay Kumar shows up on lists so much and not the others because he is still mostly earning under his own name since he does like 5 movies a year for other producers. It’s the same reason why people like Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra don’t place much higher. For instance, for KJo, the income that shows is the one he gets from hosting dance shows and awards shows, not the income he’s making through Dharma which is where the real money is. He would at most take a small profit out of it and then the rest of the money would get reinvested in the company. I’ve seen very funny lists where people like Ranveer Singh appear as higher earning than people like Karan Johar. It’s a complete joke.
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Yep! And it’s not even a matter of a tax dodge or anything like that, they don’t WANT money, they want the corporation out in the world. If you have this enormous amount coming in, you can horde it, or you can turn around and try to build something with it.
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Regarding the has-been actors, I think production companies owned by actors all have trouble with casting. They won’t be able to get any of their rivals to work with them obviously so that removes all the bigger stars. It leaves newbies or B-listers and automatically means the movies have to be lower budget by default. Actors like Abhishek Bachchan or Emraan Hashmi are a good compromise.They still have name recognition so it’s easier to promote those projects and they are decent actors.
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I’ll rephrase that, the problem with the big actors is that they already have their own production studios so they won’t be working for each other. Even if Shahrukh wanted to get Aamir Khan, for instance, for Badla instead of Amitabh, Aamir would have said “nah, but I’ll buy the script from you and produce it myself”. They just aren’t going to work for each other. But really, Shahrukh has produced for a whole variety of actors who just aren’t the current top 5 or whatever. Sid M, Amitabh, Bobby, Akshaye, Emraan, it’s a big variety of backgrounds and experience.
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That’s what I mean. None of the bigger actors will go work for each other even if there is a great script available. They might go work for Nadiadwala or Balaji types and of course YRF and Dharma. But they won’t work for another actor’s company – there is too much ego for that to happen. An actor’s company will always be limited by that. They can only make big movies for themselves and stick to smaller films for new actors or B-listers. They can only really grow as producers after they’ve retired or are too old to be considered competition for the current lot.
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See, the thing is, the really big actors aren’t even making films for YRF and Dharma any more. Salman’s last few YRF films, he was listed as a co-producer. And Red Chillies co-produced Dear Zindagi. They want that credit. I am sure if Red Chillies offered to co-producer with Salman Khan Films, they could work out a deal. But since both companies are struggling to make a mark and get started, that’s a hard sell, splitting credit. You’re right, it’s ego. But it’s ego from both sides equally I think, one of them has to be in charge and neither of them will back down.
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