After three decades of glorious filmography and diverse roles, Shah Rukh Khan is best known as the king of romance. It is hard to believe that King Khan had no plans to be a romantic hero. In fact, SRK wanted to be an action superstar but it was filmmaker Aditya Chopra who changed everything.
In Netflix’s new docuseries The Romantics, Aditya who rarely comes in front of the camera gives an interview and reveals how he convinced SRK to take the path of love. Scroll down to know all the deets:
When Aditya Met SRK
Shah Rukh and Aditya met for the first time when he was working on his first Yash Chopra film—Darr. Aditya was assisting his father on the film and he instantly liked young SRK’s work. At the time, the actor wasn’t aware that Aditya was Yash’s son and that’s why he was brutally honest with junior Chopra. “To be honest, during Darr, Mr Yash Chopra was the topmost director of the country. Although they were very loving, I felt a little ill at ease in this big set-up. So, the person who I became friendly with, who I could chat with, was Adi,” said SRK in The Romantics.
In no time, Adi and SRK started making plans to work together. This resulted in their first collab—Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.
When Aditya Saw SRK As The Ultimate Face Of Romance
For Aditya, SRK had everything he wanted in a romantic hero. In Romantics, Aditya revealed, “I was working with Shah Rukh in Darr. And I actually realised that Shah Rukh is a really soft, and really nice guy. But he pretends to be this macho and he likes action. But he’s actually not that. I was looking for a very unpredictable romantic hero.”
Even before Aditya offered DDLJ to Shah Rukh, he kept convincing him to take up the romance genre. SRK shared, “He (Aditya) used to tell me, ‘Your eyes have something that cannot be just wasted on action.” Eventually, the filmmaker’s persistence paid off and he signed SRK for Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, A Film That Changed Bollywood
For most of us 90s kids SRK’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge is a film that captures the magic of Bollywood. But Shah Rukh wasn’t keen on the project when Aditya proposed it to him. SRK confessed, “Adi came with his assistant director, Karan Johar, and they narrated Dilwale Dulhania to me, and I was shocked. I did not know what to say. And they narrated this really sweet, namby-pamby film to me, about this guy who loves… doesn’t even run away with the girl! I was like, ‘What is this? What is this film they are telling me?'”
Eventually, Adi covinced him and today DDLJ remains one of the most iconic Bollywood films of all time. Can you imagine a world without SRK’s “palat, palat, palat” ‘coz I can’t!
As a Shah Rukh Khan stan, I am forever indebted to Aditya Chopra! He truly moulded the man into the king of romance that I know and love.
Feature Image: Instagram
