The Bollywood icon, who turns 57 on November 2, has a vast Indian and global fanbase. DW's Brenda Haas finds that his charm both onscreen and off plays a big role.
The 57-year-old actor has buffed up for his upcoming film 'Pathaan' scheduled to release on 25 January 2023Image: Instagram/Shah Rukh Khan
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What happens when Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan goes off script
The Bollywood icon, who turns 57 on November 2, has starred in more than 80 films and is set to release three more in 2023. Fans love him for his unscripted humor and candor. Here are some of his wittiest quotes.
Image: Money Sharma/AFP/Getty Images
On the side effects of stardom
"I don't write checks anymore because I end up signing them, 'With love, Shah Rukh.'" The actor has always been unapologetic about his success, which at the start of his career was written off as arrogance. However, he's maintained that people who work hard shouldn't shy away from enjoying the fruits of their labors.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
On racial profiling at airports
"Whenever I start feeling arrogant about myself, I always take a trip to America. The immigration guys kick the star out of stardom." The actor's 2010 film "My Name is Khan" dealt with the reality Muslims in the US faced after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Shah Rukh himself has been detained at US airports, the last time being in 2016, which prompted him to tweet, "It really, really sucks."
Image: picture alliance/dpa
On impressing the in-laws
"They were all speaking in Punjabi so I looked at them and said, "Okay Gauri, put on your burqa. Let's read the Namaz now!" The Muslim actor and his Punjabi Hindu wife Gauri originally faced objections as her family was worried he'd force her to convert and change her name post-marriage. This quote was his icebreaker for his prospective in-laws. The couple has been married for 31 years.
Image: Sujit Jaiswal/Getty Images
On aging as a celebrity
"I realised I'm beginning to look like the wax statue of me at Madame Tussaud's. In that moment of realization, I asked the most central and pertinent question to humanity and me: Do I need to fix my face?" This line from his 2017 TED Talk had his audience in stitches but also drove home the message about how people make a big deal about aging, especially in the celebrity world.
Image: picture alliance/ANN
On having German fans
"It's very humbling. I asked why German fans who don't speak Hindi at all love our films. They told me there are buttons to start cars, coffeemakers and elevators. But in Germany we didn't have a button to cry. And you gave us that button; your films gave us that button." The star has often mentioned in various interviews that he can hardly believe he has so many German-speaking fans.
Image: Arno Burgi dpa/lbn
On whether fatherhood affected his acting
"Yeah, I treat all my heroines like children now. I pick them up, I cuddle them, I call them 'baby.'" The actor was once advised against getting married early in his career as it might affect his "hero" image. He nevertheless tied the knot and had three children and still remains a popular heartthrob both in his native India and elsewhere in the world.
Image: Rapid Eye Movies/dpa/picture alliance
On being grounded
"As an actor and performer, you have to know yourself. I know who I am; sexy, cool, good-looking, intellectual, smart, and obviously, modest," Shah Rukh Khan has quipped about himself.
Image: Money Sharma/AFP/Getty Images
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The closest I've come to Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan (yet) was when I was invited to stroke a lock of his hair that was taped onto a page of a fellow reporter's notepad with Khan's signature beneath it.
"You took his hair?!"I asked my openly and utterly besotted colleague, who'd triumphantly returned to the office bearing the lock like a trophy after interviewing him.
The year was 2001 and SRK — as the actor is known among his fans worldwide, who have been estimated to number 3.5 billion — was in my native Malaysia filming scenes in and outside the capital Kuala Lumpur for his film "One 2 Ka Four" (One, Two or Four).
A media and fan frenzy erupted wherever he went, since by then he'd sealed his reputation as the undisputed "King of Romance." He'd played the male lead in a string of "boy-beats-all-odds-to-get-girl" films, starting with the blockbuster "Dilwale Dulhania La Jayenge" (The Big-Hearted Will Take Away The Bride) in 1995.
DDLJ, as the film is known for short, remains the longest-running film in the history of Indian cinema. As of October 2022, over 27 years after its first release, it is still being shown at the Maratha Mandir theater in India's movie capital Mumbai. Incidentally, it was also the first of his films to be introduced in Germany, triggering SRK fever among German fans, too.
It was in this film that he first struck a pose — outstretched arms and a welcoming, dimpled smile — that many, including US talk show host David Letterman, who interviewed him on his Netflix show in 2019, have tried to mimic. It became a Twitter hashtag in June this year, where #ShahRukhKhan was followed by a special character resembling his iconic pose.
His Bollywood colleague Aamir Khan (they are not related) even made a wry cultural reference to this in his recent release, a Bollywood-ized version of Tom Hanks' "Forrest Gump" titled "Laal Singh Chaddha" currently playing on Netflix.
But back to that lock of hair: My colleague had it framed, telling the quizzical shop owner that it belonged to her dead husband, probably to avoid seeming like an unhinged fan. To be clear, she did get SRK's okay to pluck it off of his jacket.
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Romancer with a 'no kissing' contract
Born on November 2, 1965 in New Delhi, India, Shah Rukh Khan's initial ambition to be an athlete was dashed after an injury during his teens. He later moved to Mumbai, giving himself a year to make it in the Indian film industry that generally favors insiders bearing famous surnames.
He first dabbled in television and played anti-hero roles, since directors initially found his looks "not chocolatey enough." Soon thereafter, he rapidly rose to stardom, with his name now synonymous with the term "Bollywood." And romance, of course.
Shah Rukh Kahn, seen here with co-star Aishwarya Rai in the film 'Devdas,' describes himself as shyImage: picture-alliance/Mary Evans Picture Library
But what exactly is it about this actor who has 42 million followers on both Twitter and Facebook and 31.3 million on Instagram? Why does he have fan clubs in countries as disparate as Tanzania, Canada, Greece, China, Peru and Germany?
"Bollywood became famous for love stories, and it seems that these are mostly consumed by women. But romance is actually one of the hardest genres to succeed in, unless you have an actor who has chemistry with everyone and can still make it seem like only one is right for him," Vera Wessel, chief editor of Ishq, a German language Bollywood-focused magazine, told DW.
"Shah Rukh Khan is the best of both worlds: He can act like a big flirt, but in the end when it comes to commitment, he eventually stops joking around and we fall for it," Wessel added.
World Bank economist Shrayana Bhattacharya, who authored a book in 2021 titled "Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India's Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence," wrote that the actor's portrayal of fragile figures — whether as lover, hero, husband, Muslim or villain — and his "teary-eyed displays of humanity" onscreen endear him to fans.
The star himself often downplays his heartthrob status, insisting that he is "very shy." In 2010, he told BBC's Jonathan Ross that he had a "no kissing clause" in his contracts because he is uncomfortable doing it. He has since sparingly smooched in some of his later films.
German fans wait for the actor at the Berlinale 2008 festival where he promoted his film 'Om Shanti Om'Image: Rainer Jensen/epa/picture-alliance/dpa
Humor and humility
His razor-sharp wit and self-deprecating humor also increase fans' love for him and make him a favorite media interviewee. For instance, in his TED talk titled "Thoughts on humanity, fame and love," which he presented in Vancouver, Canada, in 2017, he began with: "I sell dreams, and I peddle love to millions of people back home in India who assume that I'm the best lover in the world. If you don't tell anyone, I'm going to tell you I'm not. But I never let that assumption go away."
With perhaps the exception of his three children, whom he fiercely loves and protects, no topic seems off-limits, be it his aging, films that flopped, or the occasional scrutiny of his sexuality. For the record, Khan, who is Muslim, and his Hindu wife, Gauri, have been married for 31 years.
Having clocked 30 years in the Indian film industry this past June, the star has made more than 80 films. He's set to release three films in 2023, after an almost three-year lull caused by the COVID pandemic.
And judging from fans' rave reactions every time he makes a promotional drop on social media for an upcoming release, it's evident that the star still hasn't lost his charm.
Bollywood remakes of Hollywood hits
Bollywood directors often remake Indian versions of Hollywood classics. While critics condemn the blatant copying, fans are quite happy to see a fresh version of the English-language movies.
It is common practice: Major film markets remake material that has been successful elsewhere for their regional audiences. Germany remakes stories from France, the USA from all over the world. In return, the studios buy the rights. Many Bollywood directors, however, tend to plagiarize. In the Indian remake of the Oscar-winning drama "Forrest Gump" with Tom Hanks (image), everything is above board.
Image: dpa/picture alliance
'Laal Singh Chaddha'
The Bollywood remake of "Forrest Gump" titled "Laal Singh Chaddha," which has just been released in Indian cinemas, is a production of Viacom 18 Studios, which in turn belongs to the US company Paramount Pictures. That's exactly where the film rights to "Forrest Gump" lie, which is why Bollywood director and lead actor Aamir Khan was spared any sleepless nights over copyright infringement.
For decades, India's film industry has been freely using material from the US market without legal consequences. "Dirty Dancing" was an absolute surprise success in the US in 1987: low budget, largely unknown actors, combined with music and countless dance scenes. Hindi filmmaker Pooja Bhatt revived it in 2006, with the name "Holiday." The film did not replicate the original's success.
Image: Constantin-film/dpa/picture alliance
'Mrs. Doubtfire'
A divorced man disguises himself as a woman so that his ex-wife will hire him as a nanny and housekeeper, thus enabling him to spend time with his children. It is a heartwarming story that director Chris Columbus released in 1993 starring the late American actor and comedian Robin Williams as the crossdressing Mrs Doubtfire.
Image: United Archives/picture alliance
'Chachi 420'
In 1997, Bollywood produced a remake of "Mrs. Doubtfire" called "Chachi 420," starring and directed by Kamal Haasan. The film was, strictly speaking, a remake of a remake, since the Bollywood version was based on "Avvai Shanmugi" from Kollywood, or the Chennai Tamil-language film industry. "Chachi 420" was a great success at the Indian box office.
Image: National Film Archive India
'Kaante'
A group of criminals fail in a bank robbery — it's a common enough storyline that filmmakers can't be accused of copying. The 2002 Indian production "Kaante" ("thorns" in English) very blatantly used the US film "Reservoir Dogs" by Quentin Tarantino as a template, complete with an ensemble cast headed by world-renowned Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan (pictured center, in a lighter suit).
Image: White Feather Films/Film Club LdT.
'Reservoir Dogs'
Tarantino's 1992 film featured Hollywood heavyweights Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi and Tim Roth. While unlicensed copies are a nuisance for many filmmakers, Tarantino was very impressed with the Indian remake "Kaante," saying he liked how the story developed the characters further and the fact that Indians were shown robbing an American bank.
Sometimes Bollywood remakes are so obviously stolen that it's hilarious. In 1987, director B. Gupta didn't have sufficient liquidity for a "Superman" remake, so he copied entire excerpts from the original and inserted them into his film. At least, the leading role was cast with Indian film star Dharmendra. American actor Christopher Reeve (pictured) remains the original Man of Steel.
Image: dpa/picture alliance
'Hari Puttar'
"Hari Puttar" might sound similar to the boy wizard Harry Potter and the mansion seen in the background of this picture resembles the Hogwarts wizarding school. That's what the US film studio Warner Bros saw in it and filed a lawsuit against Bollywood. But it lost in court, because "Hari Puttar" is not a remake of the film adaptation of JK Rowling's works.
Image: Mirchi Movies
'Home Alone'
Instead it replicated the US comedy "Home Alone." In the 1990 film, Macaulay Culkin, then a child star, played Kevin, who is forgotten at home when his family leaves for their Christmas vacation. Home alone, he has to deal with two dimwitted burglars. At least Bollywood waited 18 years to make a copy of the film.
Image: United Archives/picture alliance
'The Godfather'
Marlon Brando exceled in his iconic role as the godfather in Francis Ford Coppola's film of the same name. Several sequels followed, as well as remakes. Bollywood went for the remake, but only more than three decades later.
Image: picture-alliance
'Sarkar'
None other than the Indian superstar Amitabh Bachchan played the role of the godfather in the 2005 Hindi remake of the Hollywood classic. Accompanying him were several successful Indian actors, including his son Abhishek Bachchan and Katrina Kaif.
