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NEWS BOLLYWOOD ENTERTAINMENT INTERVIEW

The SRK Interview Part 2:

'Every Actress Works 3 Times
Harder, Gets Paid 10 Times
Lesser'
'Every Actress Works 3 Times Harder, Gets
Paid 10 Times Lesser'

By Ankur Pathak
Jul 1, 2016, 05:51 AM EDT
Updated Nov 2, 2020

FACEBOOK

This is part two of excerpts from a

conversation with Khan. You can read part one
here.

You’re not the one to back out of competition

— you’ve always faced it head-on. How did
you arrive at the decision of pushing your
next film Raees, which was supposed to
clash with Sultan [starring Salman Khan], to
next year?

We’re all friends: Adi [Aditya Chopra, who

heads Yash Raj Films], Salman, and me. There
are only 3500 screens and that’s not enough
for two big films. We don’t want any games
from the backdoors; things are pretty
transparent. I just finished a film for YRF. We
are hugging and kissing each other and then I
can’t just go and sneakily book a theatre in
Meerut for my film. Ye nahi ho paata (I can’t do
that). It becomes very awkward for me.

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Is this because of how Dilwale fared against

Bajirao Mastani last Christmas, when they
released on the same day?

That was different — it was a competitive

production house. I spoke to them 10 times to
get the release date shifted. I spoke to Sanjay
Leela Bhansali 10 times about the clash. I flew
to Eros’ Los Angeles office to get things
sorted. But their decision was taken. I then
asked Rohit Shetty to shift our dates, but he
was firm in his decision. We were always
flexible but they assumed they had
‘announced’ it first. An announcement means
nothing, yaar. You release a film when you
want to. I asked them they can come a week
earlier… whatever they wanted. I tried as hard
as I possibly could. Then something strange
happened. One of them told me that “Pandit-ji
ne date fix ki hai (pandit-ji has decided a date
for us).” Now, I didn’t really want to go to the
point where I was fighting with a pandit [in this
case, an astrologer] for a release date. The
whole argument had reached a level where
there was no logical conversation. It was faith
over rationality. It reached a place where we
couldn’t go through one chat without
demeaning each other’s films. The end result
was just unfortunate — we saved Dilwale with
the skin of our teeth, thanks to our
international business.

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How do you see yourself as part of the times

that you’re living in?

When you’re an actor, you don’t think about

the times as a separate entity. You are the
times. You make the times. I get fascinated
when I see actors say, “The audience has
gotten mature. You can do all kinds of stuff.
There’s mainstream, there’s indie, oh wow”
What the hell, man. Was the audience stupid
before? No, we were. The audience always
knew. And they know not because they think,
they know because they feel. And a feeling is
always a billion times more powerful than a
thought. A thought in itself is germinated from
a feeling.

But do you not fear the times we live in?

There’s a clampdown on freedom of
expression and some of our most important
institutes — whether it is FTII, CBFC, or more
recently the NIFT — are increasingly being
taken over by conservative elements. As a
producer, censorship of films directly affects
you. Why aren’t you out there protesting?

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I have stopped commenting on these issues

and that, I admit, is unfortunate.

Activists of Hindu Sena hold a protest against

the screening of the Shah Rukh Khan starrer
Dilwale at Barakhamba Road on December 18,
2015 in New Delhi, India. Shah Rukh had
earlier said that religious intolerance and not
being secular are the worst kind of crimes that
you can commit as a patriot.

This is precisely the kind of censorship —

censorship of thought — that I am talking
about, which seems to be happening all
around us.

Censorship has been a problem for a while. As

a producer, I have gone through some issues
myself though not too many as I have never
made un-familial films. Different committees
appointed by different governments will have
different interpretations.

See, having a different interpretation of a rule

is alright, but when there is a misinterpretation,
then it’s time for the rule to change. In the
case of Udta Punjab, Pahlaj-ji and team went
according to one interpretation of the
rulebook and, maybe, you cannot question
them on that. The rulebook though is
something you can question and work
towards changing. The rulebook should be so
well-written, so clearly written, so specifically
written that whichever government is in power,
it shouldn’t have any room for
misinterpretation.

Also, the industry must remember that by

having Twitter wars and ticker fights, you’re
devaluing your own fight. The fight is not with
one head of an institution, but with the rules of
the said institution. The head may be asked to
leave and a new one appointed, but the rules
are still going to be the same, right?

Yes, but a progressive thinker is likely to

have a more liberal approach towards art,
something that need not be bound by the
shackles of morality.

Maybe. But you must understand that we live

in a country which has places and people that
get enticed too easily. Living in a city, we may
not understand it. If deleting a few things
doesn’t make a huge difference to your film
then it’s okay if having it will cause a problem. I
had the same problem with my film Billu
(2009), which was originally called Billu
Barber. In Australia, the title of barber is as
prestigious as being a professor but here I met
people who felt it was derogatory. They said it
embarrasses us. I said I’ll take it off. It cost me
a lot of money, it hurt me also. But I did it,
despite no legal compulsion. The film didn’t
work anyway. So my point is if you sit with
people and explain them your point of view,
it’s easier to understand than coming across
arbitrary and autocratic, which just pisses
people off.

Yes, I remember you had reached out to

news outlets when a picture of your
daughter on a beach in a bikini went viral
recently. You wanted that removed.

Right. She was in a bikini, she was on a beach,

and she was with her little brother. You went
ahead and wrote a headline, “SRK’s daughter
flaunts her body.” Is it a little cheap? Maybe I
felt it was. I reached out nicely and said, dude,
your website is not going to run on my
daughter’s bikini body, can you please take it
out? People saw where I was coming from. My
daughter was a little awkward about it. She’s
16, yaar. And the headlines some sites use
are… wow. We’re very liberal people and even
had a laugh about it. But it’s still awkward.

You think the media needs to exercise more

restraint, especially in such scenarios?

That is there. But when my daughter’s pictures

were splashed everywhere online and when I
jumped to get it contained, I wasn’t protecting
her from the media — I was protecting her
from me. It’s my stardom that was the reason
that picture made it to the news — it wouldn’t
have if she wasn’t SRK’s daughter. There could
be someone running naked and that wouldn’t
be news.

There was a time when you would show up

at the doorstep of a journalist, abuse
reporters, and generally call out the press for
the way they presented you. With age, have
you now mellowed down in your
temperament?

You know, I dangle between two extremes.

Either I am calm or I am a storm. I am not in-
between. And there are moments when my
calmness suddenly bursts into a bout of
madness and it’s very dark. I’ve been
everywhere – I have yelled and abused and
beaten up people, and I have also gotten
beaten up. It’s not a good place to be in
[laughs]. I’m not apologetic about it and I am
not ashamed of it. Sometimes when I am
giving life advice to my son and telling him,
“You gotta be patient son, you gotta show
restraint.” And then we both burst out laughing
when he says, “Really, Papa? You’re saying
this?” And I’m like, “Ok, bro, do what you have
to.”

In an interview with GQ in February 2010,

you said, “There are days I feel lonely on the
inside. I guess that’s the way I am. I’ve never
gotten into relationships because I’m scared
to. I have a shield. I’ve lost my parents, so
now I don’t like to lose relationships. I have
to admit, at the age of 44, that I am socially
and emotionally inept.”

Has the arrival of AbRam help filled that void,

or helped change that aspect about you?

Till the time your kids are 7 years old, they

bring about a sea-change in your life. Then the
idiots grow up and leave and do their thing.
Now, I can’t be having a kid every 7 years
although that does sound like a solution to my
loneliness. (laughs). I love children as
whatever they do — misbehave, shout, swear
— you only feel love for them. That’s also what
great acting does and I believe my final
destination as an actor is to have child-like
honesty. There’s so much of beauty in their
untainted, uncorrupt words. Even when they
say ‘Fuck off’, it is not destroyed by the worldly
meaning of the term. A lot of time goes to my
children. I spend a lot of time with AbRam, his
three friends and also friends of Aryan and
Suhana. I am glad I don’t make them awkward.

But in today’s times, a star needs to be

accessible at all times. On Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram, Snapchat. Do you feel the
pressure to be on top of these modern forms
of social currencies?

I can’t, yaar. I don’t know how to give a ‘shout

out’ on Twitter or tell people things like,
‘You’re killing it.’ I’m bad and weird about it. I
can’t return calls or text messages. If I like
something, I’ll just tell you when I see you, ki
acchha laga (I liked it). I am quite socially inept
although I am good to talk with. Sometimes, I
just want to be in a place where nothing is
expected out of me. As a star, it’s almost
impossible other than when you’re in the
company of a 3-year-old. All adult
relationships are full of expectations. AbRam
has filled in much more than I could have
imagined.

Are you scared to live up to those

expectations or is it that you don’t have any
will left to invest in people anymore?

Relationships kill love. Relationships have

rules. And rules are misinterpreted.
Relationships have conditions and boundaries
and, yes, expectations. You can’t go by what
others expect. They may do a lot to you
because they can or they have the time. But
the best kinds of relationships are the ones
without conditions. Not the ones that go, “We
have to meet ya, like once a week.” No man,
we don’t have to. We’ll still be good. Love
should be free of conditions or it isn’t love at
all.

One of my closest friends lives in LA and we

don’t meet for years sometimes, forget
birthdays and anniversary greetings, but when
we do meet, we start off from where we left.
Even if he doesn’t have my back during my
times of trouble, he’s still my friend. “But
where were you during my times of trouble?”
they say. “I was dealing with my own.” “But
yours was work, mine was emotional.” “Fuck
you.”

I have a lot of love for a lot of people but I

can’t say if I have a relationship with them.

Film industries over the world are a hotbed

of lost love, broken relationships, infidelities.
How has your marriage survived?

I’ll tell you something — it’s a little difficult to

be a movie star’s spouse. Our lives don’t
belong to our partners. They belong to the
 world. We’re called public figures because we
not longer have a private life the way it’s
meant to.

To be able to take that for so many years and

be able to carve an identity and space for
yourself is extremely difficult. And Gauri has
been great in making a space for herself in
which she is not identified as Shah Rukh
Khan’s wife. By not doubting, talking, or doing
anything, she’s made her own identity and that
takes a very large heart.

To be a partner to a movie star means that you

don’t own them. And to continue to be like
that without feeling belittled, smaller or
unimportant takes a lot.

Gauri and my relationship has been geared

entirely towards raising our children. That’s
what eventually happens. Parents become
parents at one point and that changes it all.
We have a badass 18-year-old, a dainty 16-
year-old and then there’s the 3-year-old little
gangster. Our conversations, our life together
is through the prism of our children. They’ve
been our focal point and have literally kept our
world intact.

Would you have wanted it any other way?

I don’t know. It’s different. I can’t ruin their

weekends because of my bad Fridays. I can’t
make them jump with joy on a jubilant Monday
that I have. I can’t take them to the bathroom
and cry because my IPL team lost by one run
in the finals. Why should I take them on this
rollercoaster ride? They didn’t sign up for this. I
can’t make them realise that Fan meant a lot
to me and that it didn’t do well. I know they
sense it. But I still don’t allow my day to walk
into my house. It’s a difficult balance to keep.
And that’s what makes me lonely. I can’t even
take them — my own family — through my
emotional upheavals. It’s not for lack of love,
it’s for the lack of choice. They didn’t get to
choose this, they had to.

As an actor, I am the seller of dreams. But that

doesn’t mean that if the dreams don’t sell, I
bring the nightmares home to my wife and
children. No, I will never do that. It happens in
a lot of Bollywood families. But not mine.

There’s a lot of talk about Suhana wanting to

become an actress. Will you launch her when
the time comes?

I’m a selfish actor, I only launch myself

[laughs]. My kids, whatever they want to be,
need to educate themselves. There is a
minimum education requirement in this house.
If you can’t hold a conversation with me, then
you’re not just cut out for it. I am a believer of
education — 80 percent of what I am is
because of education. My kids have been
brought up very well, they’re very dignified.
Suhana wants to be an actress and she says
that she doesn’t want to learn it from me.
Which is an amazing thought to have. Because
it means that she wants to do the same thing
as me but with an independent and a unique
voice.

What is your relationship with her like?

I have written a book for her. That’s the only

way I felt I could approach her. I am awkward,
even with my own family. I will never encroach
on a girl’s space so she has her privacy. Some
of it is strange, some of it is technical, and
some of it are just dad-to-daughter
conversations. She finished reading it recently
and told me to write some more. I am on it.

Have you seen her act?

Yes, she participates in a lot of theatre and

she’s quite good as an actress. In fact, she’s
just done a play and I may get a call any
minute about how she fared. I feel you must
not be an actor because your father or mother
wants you to be — you should be an actor
because you cannot be anything else.

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Bollywood’s top stars have maintained a

stoic silence on the gender-based wage
disparity in the industry.

I feel every woman in this industry works three

times harder than the men and gets ten times
lesser the money. But not in my company. I
can’t enforce that in the films that I act in and
don’t produce — but the ones that I produce,
there’s equal pay. Plus, their name appears
before mine in the title credits.

I don’t talk about the change. I am the change.

In my films, the girl’s name always comes
before mine. On my film’s set, the girl is always
in a higher position than men – nobody can
call them “tu”; it’s always “aap.”

You’re often called the greatest movie star in

the world and as befits that claim, you live a
charmed life. A house with more rooms than
you’ve probably utilised, fancy cars,
luxurious travel – it’s a life of such dizzying
opulence that most people will never know
what it’s like to be you. Doesn’t that also
come with a sense of depressing world-
weariness since there isn’t anything left that
you want but can’t get…

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I am aware of the fact that I enjoy a unique

space in people’s hearts and I get more love
from them than I probably deserve.

But that’s what wakes me up every morning —

to ensure that kind of love stays. The first five
years of my career, I was clueless. These
current five years I want to ensure I do things
that make me feel loved and prove to myself
that I am deserving of everything that you
spoke about. I want to sit with all these people
— 3 billion — who supposedly love me and
make each of them feel special and worthy of
the time and affection they gave me. I want to
ask them, “Did I entertain you enough for all
the love you’ve given me? Are we good?” I
want to know and feel better by hearing that I
probably did. That anxiety keeps me alive,
keeps me awake, puts me to bed and wakes
me up to go to a movie set.

And that’s anything but world-weariness. It’s

excitement.

Is there ever a real moment, a moment of

absolute privacy, which involves SRK sans
the stardom?

Oh, yes. When I am not acting, I am a chilled

out guy hanging in an old pair of jeans and
messy hair. Many tell me, “What are you doing
looking like this?” and I go like, please. This is
a moment when I am not acting and I want to
savour this moment of being me.

This was part two of the interview. Click here

to read part one.

BOLLYWOOD NEWS ENTERTAINMENT

INTERVIEW SHAH RUKH KHAN

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