Producer-director Karan Johar has done six films with Shah Rukh Khan (if you don’t count the cameos in Kaal and Ae Dil Hai Mushkil). Then KJo made one film without him — Student of The Year. There were rumours of a rift between them, that ended when the star made a friendly appearance in KJo’s last film, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. For the fans of this star and filmmaker jodi, that cameo is a sign of them coming together for Karan’s next directorial. Ask KJo about the SRK cameo in ADHM, and he says, “Shah Rukh is amazing. The day when he did that one scene for me in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, he didn’t know anything about it. He came on the set, read the scene and did it. We have a chemistry as director and actor that is just ours. He looks at me and he knows what I need. He read the scene and he knew what I wanted and I knew what he was going to do. We had kept eight hours and we finished it in four.
Everybody in my team said, ‘You two are just amazing together’.”
Emotional moments
Being back on a set with SRK post SOTY must have been emotional. Karan confesses, “We were both emotional, but we were pretending as if we are grown men.
Aishwarya (Rai Bachchan) said, ‘You both have this connection’. I wrote the lines knowing that he was going to render them just the way it was shot and designed and I went to him and said, ‘I think only you can do this scene’. I needed his star power for that moment in the film and it just came together beautifully.”
Amazing chemistry
That chemistry is exactly why the public wants to see them back together. Karan says, “I know that when we do come together, it will be seamless. He is one actor I know, if I go to him for a film, he won’t even ask for a narration and will still come more prepared than most actors. I know when we come together — which could happen anytime — it will always be special because he and I have an understanding that I can proudly say he has only with me.”
‘It has to be something big’
For the two to come together, the project will have to be great. SRK had recently said that Karan had approached him for a role, but then dropped the idea as the latter wasn’t convinced about the project. “Yes, Shah Rukh is somebody with whom I have had a great creative collaboration. We are a little like a dream team, so I feel like when we come together, it has to be a mammoth film and has to be bigger than anything else.”
