Superstar Shah Rukh Khan, who delivered a blockbuster year for his fans with Atlee’s directorial Jawan, revealed his desire to work in a South genre film after Dil Se. In conversation with Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival, SRK shared his thoughts on South cinema.
He said, “If you ask me honestly, for years, me calling Indian cinema regionalized is wrong. It’s just that our country is so vast that we don’t have different dialects across the nation; we have languages across the nation. So, there is Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali—there are so many languages. Somehow, it’s all Indian cinema. For me, the greatest storytelling parts of India, if I could say it like this, are South Indian. They have some outstanding storytelling.”
Shah Rukh praised South cinema as fantastic in terms of cinematic and technical quality. “Malayalam cinema, Telugu cinema, Tamil cinema—they have some of the greatest superstars of our country, and we all know it. In India, it’s just that recently, with huge hits including Jawan, RRR, and Baahubali, everybody started noticing it all over. But cinematically and technically, South cinema is really, really fantastic,” the Pathaan actor stated.
King Khan also revealed that his desire to work in the South genre came after working with Mani Ratnam in Dil Se. He added, “It was my desire, after working with Mani Ratnam in Dil Se, to work in a South genre film. Not just get a South Indian director to make a film. Each area and every person has a different take on telling a story; South has a specific one—larger than life, robust, with lots of music. They love their heroes to be larger than life. I really enjoyed it. I had never done a film like that. As a matter of fact, I would take my kids and say, ‘Please see, am I looking okay?’ Because I would just be clapping my hands. It was as if the greatest moment in the history of mankind.”
Praising director Atlee, SRK recalled a sweet moment when Atlee named his son after Khan’s father. “Yes, language was a bit of an issue to start off with, but then we started gesticulating. I would look at Atlee, who’s a wonderful guy. He incidentally also had a baby while we were making the film. Meer, whom he named after my father, which was very sweet. We made most of the film just shaking our hands and having a great time over idli dosa and some chili chicken. I think genuinely, it’s one of the first fusions of Hindi and South Indian cinema which transcended all kinds of boundaries and did really good business and was really loved across the whole nation. So, it was a great experience for me.”
On August 10, Shah Rukh Khan added another achievement to his illustrious career. He became the first Indian personality to be honoured with a lifetime achievement award, the Pardo alla Carriera, or Career Leopard, at the 77th edition of the Locarno Film Festival.
SRK returned to the silver screen with Siddharth Anand’s Pathaan in January 2023. In the film, SRK donned an action avatar and left everyone in awe. The film broke several records at the box office and managed to secure a place among the highest-grossing films in the Indian film industry. It marked SRK’s first hit after a sabbatical of four years following a series of duds like Zero and Jab Harry Met Sejal.
After Pathaan, King Khan returned to theatres in September with Jawan. The film once again showcased SRK in an action avatar and collected over Rs 1,000 crore at the worldwide box office.
