Shah Rukh Khan was welcomed at the Locarno Film Festival 2024 where he received a Lifetime Achievement Award. The actor shared many insights about his acting journey with the host and audiences. Shah Rukh recalled how he was once ashamed of his dance skills and spoke about the bond he shares with filmmaker Atlee. A glimpse at the confessions made by the King actor at Locarno Film Festival:

Shah Rukh Khan hails South cinema

When asked to describe the difference between Bollywood and South cinema, Shah Rukh opined, “If you ask me, to regionalise Indian cinema is wrong to be honest. It's just that our country is so vast that we don't have different dialects across the nation, we have different languages across the nation. So, there is Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Odia and so many languages. It's all Indian cinema. For me, the greatest storytelling is in the South Indian part. They have some of the outstanding stories from Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil cinema.

"They have some of the greatest superstars of our country and we all know it in India. It's just that with some of the huge hits like Jawan, RRR and Baahubali, everybody started noticing it all over. But cinematically and technically, South cinema is really fantastic. It was a desire after working with Mani Ratnam to work in a South genre film, not just get a South Indian director to direct a movie. South has a very different take on storytelling, larger-than-life, robust, lots of music going on. I really enjoy it.”

Atlee has a connection with SRK's late father

Shah Rukh revealed that Atlee named his son after his father Mir Taj Mohammed Khan and told, “We had a lot of fun. Language was a bit of an issue to start off with. But then we started gesticulating. I looked at Atlee who is a wonderful guy. He incidentally also had a baby while we were making the film. He named him after my father. So, in South when you call Sir, you say Garu. So, I would say ‘Garu’ and he would reply, 'Mass,' which means good. We had some lovely actors like Vijay Sethupathi and Nayanthara Ji. It was one of the first fusions of Hindi and South Indian cinema which transcended boundaries. It did good business and was loved across the nation.”

Shah Rukh Khan shares his success mantra

Shah Rukh recalled watching Dilip Kumar's Devdas on television while pressing his mother's feet and stated, “It is very special. Again this whole interview has become about my mother because when I was pressing her feet which I have done a lot. One Mantra you get for success is keep pressing your mother's feet. And Devdas was one of the movies she loved watching. My dad also used to talk about it. It was one of the biggest classic films, Dilip Kumar saab, even before that KL Saigal and Uttam Kumar from Bengali cinema also played the character.”

Shah Rukh Khan calls Devdas a loser

While expressing his views on Devdas, the actor pointed out, “It is about a guy who becomes an alcoholic, doesn't commit to a girl. At that time I couldn't find an essence in it at my age. Many years later, Sanjay Leela Bhansali came to me and he said, ‘I want you to do Devdas.’ I said, 'He is a loser, alcoholic, I'm too cool to be Devdas.'

"Before leaving he said, ‘I’ll not make this film if not with you, because your eyes are like Devdas.' For an year he couldn't cast anyone so I said, ‘If you cannot find eyes like mine, I will do the film.' It was one of three most wonderful experiences of my life. I don't like playing characters which demean women. I didn't want him to be liked for being someone who disses women. I wanted him to come across as a person who is spineless. He is not somebody you should look upto.”

Shah Rukh Khan on his iconic arm pose

Shah Rukh while speaking about his legendary arm pose said, “I think what happened is in Indian cinema, especially during the 90s, dip was a real thing.” The actor stood up to show the dip while asking his audience to hum a song for him. Then the actor added, “I couldn’t do dip. Because of this, I was quite ashamed of myself. All night, I kept practicing it in my room. The next morning, I remember saying to my choreographer Saroj Khan, ‘Ma’am, ready?’ She said, ‘Yes, but as you cannot do dips, you just stand there and put your arms out. I did dips for her and she was like, ‘No, no, don’t do it. It doesn’t look nice on you.’ So, she didn’t let me do the dip and I had to put my arms out.”

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