Hey Ram

Kamal Haasan’s 2000 film Hey Ram feels relevant now more than ever. Shah Rukh Khan, playing the golden-hearted Amjad Khan, was the voice of reason and the conscience keeper of the film, which showed the country during Partition descending into insanity. An underrated performance for which he didn’t charge a penny, Shah Rukh (who is a Pathan himself) nailed it with his authentic look — white Pathan suit, black waistcoat, white turban, beard and the quintessential soorma in his eyes.

Mohabbatein

Many would argue that SRK looked pretty much like, well, SRK in this Aditya Chopra film about love lost and found and lost but does it get more iconic than that image of a bespectacled King Khan in a crisp white shirt matched with a pair of white trousers and a sky-blue pullover thrown carefully-carelessly around his shoulders as he played the violin? Perhaps the easiest — and the most easily recognised — look to pull off at a Bollywood-themed party.

Asoka

This period film is perhaps best remembered for Anu Malik’s lilting tunes and director Santosh Sivan’s evocative frames. It starred SRK as Asoka and was a dramatisation of the early years of the king’s life. While the actor’s long-haired and armoured look as a royal was a bit of a fail, we did warm to his ‘common man’ vibe, mostly because a lot of it had him shirtless.

Devdas

Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s reimagining of the Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay classic was expectedly more opulent than previous celluloid versions of Devdas. Shah Rukh, playing the lovelorn young man who loses the love of his life and gives into a life of alcoholism, had an enviable wardrobe, comprising everything from sharply-cut suits, hats and bowties to crisp chikankari kurtas and pristine white dhotis.

Paheli

The lavish, and under-watched, Paheli had Shah Rukh playing a Rajasthani businessman and his doppelganger ghost who falls in love with his wife, played by Rani Mukerji. SRK has sported a moustache in many a film, but in Paheli he took his look a notch higher with a massive turban, a teeka on his forehead, richly embroidered (and sometimes blingy) kurtas and pyjamas to match.

Chak De! India

Much has been written and said about SRK’s subtle yet sexy hockey coach in this seminal Shimit Amin film. While his dress code strictly remained sporty (athleisure wasn’t quite the buzzword then), it was his attractive stubble — lending intensity, gravitas and character to Kabir Khan — that made this one of his most talked-about screen looks.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

SRK stuck on a moustache and parted down his hair to play the nerdy Surinder Sahni. For the alpha version of his character, cranked up to insane levels of street-smartness, SRK went back to his Kuch Kuch Hota Hai style storyboard. Only this time, as Raj, the T-shirts were tighter and the gelled hair spikier.

Ra.One

Playing G.One, an android made of electrical circuits who travels to the real world through the electromagnetic waves that surround it, SRK, sporting blue eyes and spiked hair, slipped on a metallic dark blue suit with blue markings on his arms and chest, flowing with blue electrical energy, and black gloves. He teamed it with a silver metallic belt with blue squared buckles, black cargo pants and shoes. The superstar has gone on record to say that donning the suit, despite the difficulties it came with, was “a lot of fun”. SRK’s look as Shekhar, the scientist responsible for creating G.One, was, however, a typical scientist stereotype, with those awful curls being a big
no-no.

Fan

Yet another film that had the Bollywood Badshah in two roles — this time as a superstar pretty close to his real-life persona and the other, with the more interesting look, belonging to his obsessive fan, also played by SRK.

As Gaurav, the young Delhi-based fan, Shah Rukh went through 3D scanning for his look, with five-time Oscar winner Greg Cannom being brought on board to work on the prosthetics. Both make-up and CGI were employed to make SRK, then 50, transform into 25-year-old Gaurav, for which the actor also had to modulate his voice.

Raees

Playing out in the ’60s and ’70s, this Rahul Dholakia directorial gave SRK the liberty to play around with his look as his character, Raees Alam, travelled the gamut from bootlegger to gangster. The actor looked ruggedly handsome in his retro look, complete with a full beard, Pathan suits, soorma-laden eyes and big-rimmed glasses. For the rest, he just let his enigmatic persona take over. Watch Zaalima once more.

Zero

This was a terrible film on most counts, though Shah Rukh did try his best to bring some integrity to an otherwise poorly-written character. SRK had to shrink his 5’10”-inch frame to play the sometimes cocky, sometimes charming Bauua, who stood at just 4’6”. While Lego-like sets were built to film on and the makers used the technology of Forced Perspective (a technique that employs optical illusion to make an object appear farther, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is), Bauua’s look in itself was pretty interesting — the small-town boy from Mathura sported a unique, often over-the-top and colourful wardrobe, perfectly in tune with his personality.

Pathaan

Arriving five years after the debacle of Zero, there was quite a bit of pressure on the actor with Pathaan. The film created havoc at the box office, bulldozing many a record on the way. Shah Rukh, seen on screen after a while, stole the show with both presence and look, those long locks suiting him. The taut abs (the man is 57) and the heavage peeking out of those low-cut shirts were a definite win!

Jawan

The trailer of Shah Rukh Khan’s potential blockbuster Jawan, releasing this Thursday, shows the actor donning many looks. At one point he is an Armyman with a handlebar moustache, at another, he has his usual clean-shaven look rocking a policeman’s uniform. Somewhere, in the trailer, we also see him sporting long locks, similar to his look in Pathaan. The most notable one, of course, is his turn as the bald ‘villain’ holding the passengers of a metro train hostage. If the film is as interesting as his looks, then we have a winner already!

Which is your favourite SRK look on screen? Tell t2@abp.in