- Title: Bollywood films don't always need a song -Shah Rukh Khan
- Date: 13th April 2016
- Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (APRIL 13, 2016) (REUTERS) ***WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** BOLLYWOOD SUPERSTAR SHAH RUKH KHAN ENTERING ROOM AT MADAME TUSSAUDS MUSEUM CAMERAMEN / KHAN WITH HIS WAXWORK (SOUNDBITE) BOLLYWOOD ACTOR, SHAH RUKH KHAN, SAYING: "Gaurav is 24-years-old so me being 50, having to play that. I knew what it would entail. I didn't know how much it takes to put that up. The makeup, the VFX, and losing some weight. And then, you know, playing it as a Delhi boy, which I am, but I haven't been there for the last 25 years, so that was interesting. And Aryan as a movie star, which is closer home, but he wasn't like me. He's more reserved and politically correct. And also I think a little less flamboyant, serious. So I think all these things put together made it extremely different from any double role that I've done."
- Embargoed: 27th April 2016 20:18
- Keywords: Madame Tussauds India showbiz movie interview Fan Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan
- Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK
- City: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Celebrities,Arts / Culture / Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA0014D7EPMT
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: The Indian film industry is changing and movies no longer have to have a song and dance sequence to be successful, Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan said on Wednesday (April 13).
Khan, who was in London on a brief visit to promote his latest film, told Reuters in an interview that while 'Fan' had a theme song, the song did not actually feature in the movie and had been used purely for trailers.
"The younger filmmakers and everyone, they know that, you know, we don't need to just shove in a song anymore," he said.
"I think song and dancing inherently will move into a zone that when you'll watch an Indian film you'll look at it and say oh there's a musical and there'll be a non-musical. It may be musical like Hollywood that the songs are running in the background. So I don't think it's going to take away, it'll take a lot of time to take the songs out of us, but every film will have a different requirement."
Bollywood films traditionally have had complex musical scores and filmmakers have rarely resisted the temptation to insert a song and dance sequence into a film. Some films' success rates have been dependent more on the music than the plot.
Khan's latest film, which releases globally on Friday (April 15), sees the actor playing a double role in which a lookalike fan is obsessed with a film star.
On Wednesday, Khan revealed a waxwork model dressed as the lookalike fan, Gaurav, at Madame Tussauds museum in central London. When asked if he had ever met his lookalike in person, he said many fans often dressed like him.
"I'm a very common looking guy. I have a person who dresses up like me and they all wear dark glasses so they're kind of similar and they speak like me, in Kolkata. I have a boy called Prashant in Mumbai. I meet lots of lookalikes. Even on Twitter if you go, there's people who dress up. Before my eye surgery, I would confuse lots of them for my own pictures."
The 50-year-old actor, who has a massive international fan following, said he enjoyed using social media platforms to engage with his admirers. Khan has 19 million followers on Twitter and said he reads 90 percent of the content directed at him.
However, the actor said he had shied away from using other platforms after his daughter criticised his pictures on Instagram, saying he was using too many colour filters on his images.
Khan, who has been acting for more than two decades, is regarded as a pioneer in the Indian film industry for experimenting with using graphics and special effects in his films. The makeup for his character Gaurav was done by the same artist who created Brad Pitt's look in the 2008 film 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'.
But when asked about animation films, Khan said it would take at least another 5-10 years before Bollywood would be ready to embrace the genre.
"It requires special writing. I think we haven't perfected that art in India. So we need writers and screenplay writers for an animation, I think from the West, he said. Animation in India so far has not done very well. I think we still need to crack the code," Khan said. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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