Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan opened up about his love for cinema, stardom and over three-decade-long acting career during a chat with Locarno Film Festival’s artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro before receiving a lifetime achievement award. Here’s what he had to say.

His love for cinema

When asked how he fell in love with cinema, Shah Rukh recounted how his mother played a role in inculcating his habit of watching movies. “My mother was a big movie fan and we had a video cassette recorder. In India, we believe there’s heaven in mother’s feet. So, every night when my mother used to ask me to press her feet, I would do that. And some movie would be playing on the television or the video recorder. That’s how I started liking films,” the actor said.

His desire to become a film director

Shah Rukh, who was in Switzerland to receive the Pardo alla Carriera, recalled the time when he came to Mumbai to become a film director. “I wanted to become a film director. I came to Mumbai in 1990. I thought I will get a few roles. I thought I will work for a year, earn enough money to buy a house and return (to Delhi) to become a mass communication journalist or a scientist. One thing led to another and I haven’t gone back yet,” he said.

Playing the villain in early days of his acting career

Shah Rukh revealed that during his early days as an actor, a famous director told him that he was ugly because he didn’t fit the ‘Swiss chocolate-y’ look of the heroes at that time. That’s why he decided to do bad-guy roles. “One of the bad guy roles I did was Darr, which was shot in Switzerland. When I was finishing the film, Yash Chopra told me he wanted to cast me in a love story as I did not look like a bad guy. That’s how we did Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge,” he recalled.

Working with female directors

The Main Hoon Na actor said there definitely was a difference working with a female director but it wasn’t a major “decision-making or deal-breaking” difference. “Having worked with women as actresses, as producers, as directors, I do find them a little more sensitive and a little more nuanced than men,” he opined. “They also smell nicer,” he jokingly added, urging people on social media to not take the comment in a negative connotation.

Playing an insecure superstar in Fan

Acknowledging the fact that he is known to work in films that bring joy and positivity to the audience, Shah Rukh said as an actor sometimes he wants “to try something which has not been done before to push the boundaries”. He also revealed that it was difficult for him to play an insecure superstar in the film. “It was like looking in a mirror and identifying with the image,” he said.

Dealing with his superstar status

“To be able to entertain people when they come in touch with me is the most important thing. There is nothing more important… I never understood the stardom part of it. So, I come and I try to give joy… Stardom is just a circumstantial consequential byproduct of this,” he said.

Diversity of Indian cinema

Shah Rukh said it would be wrong to regionalise Indian cinema to Bollywood only because India was such a vast country with numerous languages. “It’s all Indian cinema,” Shah Rukh commented, adding that south Indian cinema has some outstanding storytelling.