A more than two-decade long illustrious career with close to 100 movies, but Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan says he felt incompetent filming his upcoming drama Fan.The 50-year-old actor believes without director Maneesh Sharma’s guidance, he would not have been able to do justice to the character of Gaurav.
Fan shows Khan in double avatars — a superstar, Aryan Khanna and his young lookalike admirer Gaurav. While Aryan is close to how the Dilwale star is in real life, it took him some time to understand the psyche of a fan.
“I won’t say it was easy because I was playing a movie star, the way I do in real life. So it does take you away from the real world. Maneesh and the whole team had a great understanding of how Gaurav was.
“50 per cent of what you see Gaurav is a physical transformation — prosthetics and VFX have been used. 100 per cent Gaurav is Maneesh’s vision. I don’t think I have done 100 per cent what Maneesh may have wanted because he was very clear about it,” said Khan.
The actor said he is fine with taking credit for a lot of characters he had played in his career, but for this particular role he had to go by the thought process the director had.
“I wouldn’t have been able to play the role. I just knew the superficiality of fan before Maneesh told me the depth and how well understood was Gaurav. If I achieve what Maneesh wanted then I will be very happy. I don’t know what I was playing; I was just following Maneesh’s instructions.”
Khan was all praise for the Band Baaja Baaraat director and his team for “bearing with him.”
“I was the oldest on the set; all these kids were very patient with me. Wearing the prosthetics wasn’t easy; I used to get irritated as the sweat used to stick on the face. But they bore with me.
“We have worked very hard so that it does not look unreal. Also, as I am a known face so it is not easy to play a 50-year-old and then do a more than half-age character,” he said.
Khan also shared that the character of Aryan Khanna will not have any of the flamboyance a superstar is attached with usually. “It is a very personal journey of Aryan. We have not shown him as flamboyant. He is shown like how I will be at home, with people around. Aryan has a lot of depth.”
