Mumbai: Bauua Singh is the character which SRK is essaying in ‘Zero’, one of the most-awaited movies of the year.
In a unique campaign, the Baadshah has created a verified twitter account @Bauua which already has an incredible 245.4K followers, including none other than Amitabh Bachchan and SRK himself.
‘Zero’ is going to be a huge experiment but not the first for the superstar. On his birthday, let us go on a trivia journey to know something new about 10 of his most experimental movies.
They are, in no particular order, as follows:-
Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa
The King Khan calls it one of his best movies and says it’s close to his heart. It will always be one wish of his that will remain unfulfilled that he did not produce the movie. He plays an aspiring musician in this romantic comedy-drama. It takes guts to portray a loser (even a lovable one) and SRK did just that in this movie.
Maya Memsaab
In this mystery movie, based on Gustave Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary, he plays a young man who has an affair with an older woman, Maya ( Deepa Sahi). A scene in the movie, in which he and Deepa were seen without clothes, drew huge criticism and he reportedly swore never to enact any such scene again. Music by Hridayanath Mangeshkar, lyrics by Gulzar and beautiful songs by Lata were the highlights of this movie.
Paheli
Paheli was India’s entry to the Oscars. In this Amol Palekar’s movie SRK plays a ghost, who disguises himself as Rani Mukherjee’s dead husband. The movie was produced by Red Chillies Entertainment and Amitabh Bachchan had a small role on request. Later when Shah Rukh asked his office to write a cheque for Amitabh, the megastar refused to accept the payment saying that he had accepted the role out of love for him.
My Name is Khan
This Karan Johar’s movie stars Shah Rukh as Rizwan Khan, who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome and embarks on a life mission to meet the President of the USA and tell him “My Name is Khan and I am not a terrorist”. At the end of the movie he does meet President Obama.
Shah Rukh’s character was compared to Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man) and Tom Hanks ( Forrest Gump). James Cameron praised his performance and considers it his favorite Hindi movie.
Chak De India
Shah Rukh plays Kabir Khan, the coach of the Indian women hockey team. The 16 girls, who were picked to essay the roles of the players, underwent four-month training in the sport. One of the main characters, Sagarika Ghatge recently got married to cricketer Zaheer Khan.
Freida Pinto had auditioned for one of the roles but was not selected.
Swades
It flopped at the box office. However, a decade and half later it is now considered a cult movie. SRK himself calls it the most beautiful movie he has done. He plays Mohan Bhargava, an NRI who returns to India to make a difference. Swades was the first Hindi movie to have been shot inside NASA.
Ra One
This movie was ahead of its time. Shah Rukh plays a super hero. The concept of the movie is unusual – where the villain is more powerful than the hero. Superstar Rajanikanth played a cameo in the movie and so did Sanjay Dutt and Priyanka Chopra in a dream sequence. It is the costliest movie till date, where SRK fulfilled his childhood ambition to fly.
Dil Se
Mani Ratnam’s iconic film was originally titled “Ladakh- Ek Prem Kahani“. Kajol was supposed to enact the role which finally Manisha Koirala did. Mani Ratnam’s had enormous praise for Shah Rukh and said the “most challenging aspect was keeping SRK’s enthusiasm in control”. The movie was based on insurgency in the north-east, a rare topic. Shah Rukh’s dance steps in the song Chaiya Chaiya are memorable and also propelled Malaika Arora to stardom. It is playback singer Sukhwinder Singh’s most popular song even today, 20 years after the movie was released.
Asoka
This movie captures the early life of Emperor Asoka. The movie was critically acclaimed but did not do well at the box office. SRK plays Asoka, Kareena Princess Kaurwaki and South Star Ajith plays Prince Susima, Asoka’s half-brother and rival. Ajith is probably the only Indian film actor who is a Formula 2 racing car driver and this was his only Hindi movie.
Fan
This songless psychological thriller film is the first movie to be shot in Madama Tussauds museum. SRK has a double role in it. He plays a superstar and his look-alike obsessed fan. Some real life fan moments of the superstar were incorporated in the movie to give it an authentic look. SRK has often said that whatever he is it is because of his fans and it was indeed a tribute to ‘Fans’ that he did a movie based on an obsessive one. The actor is magnificent in the movie, both as the superstar as well as the young 25-year-old obsessed fan.
SRK will definitely continue experimenting and entertaining.
Happy Birthday to the megastar.
(Ritesh Misra blogs @ thesportsmanwritesaway.wordpress.com and tweets @riteshmisra)
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