Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan welcomed the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate Middleton. The royal couple arrived in Mumbai on Sunday. It was their first visit to India.
Excerpts from Shah Rukh’s speech below.
“I welcome the Duke and the Duchess of Cambridge to our city Mumbai. All of us here have had long standing relations with Great Britain, over the years, mine has become even closer. My kids are studying there, so I’ve been hearing a lot more about the Royal Highnesses and the work that they’ve been doing.”
“Tonight in this room are present people from all walks of life. We have legendary sportspersons, we have the great Mr Sachin Tendulkar. Dilip Vengsarkar and so many others. We have fantastic businessmen and businesswomen here. We have Mr. Birla, we have the Punawalas here and so many others. And of course, we also have a set of very very talented group of artists from the entertainment world. The wonderful Madhuri Dixit, Alia Bhatt, Arjun Kapoor, the greatest ever Mr Anil Kapoor and so many others.”
“We are all here to extend our support to your ambition and all the charity you support your highness”
“I also heard your highness say ‘I don’t know if I have a favourite colour’, I just want to assure you that, your royal highness, even though your stay is extremely short in India, you’ll go back finding more than one one favourite colour from this country.”
“India is the most colourful and warmest of nations that you’ll ever visit in your life”
“On behalf of all those who are present here and even those who are not, from people all around the country, I wish you a very warm welcome to India and hope you have the loveliest stay that you’ve experienced in your life.”
Legend!
4 days 2 go #FAN
SRK is the KING
This guy is beyond box office and numbers.
He can lit up even the most boring occasion with his charisma and intellect.
4 days to go for the cult blockbuster #FAN
Faadu First Look Poster of Sultan ! Dear srk fans do not forget to use burnol :-D
The best person to welcome the Royal couple should have been a Badshaah himself. So obviously SRK, the Badshaah of Bollywood was the most apt to welcome them.
Eloquent in speech and a true charmer both with words and in personality.
Great words those which he said about India.
Legend King Khan….
Very Good speech……
SRK have good communication skill & Knowledge… And also SRK was easly facing media and giving a best Answer… Not like Lallu , Fan less Aamir & Jadoo boy their always fighting with media.. Jadoo boy always fighting with kangana…
#Fasal kerala
@Satyam I asked for Burnol in my nearby store but he informed me that it used to sell in bulks during the entire 1990s and 2000s but nowadays it isn’t being sold here.
In case you have some extra stock which you would purchased during 2006 Diwali can you please send it..but do check the manufacturing date to ensure it isn’t spoilt as your brain
What a Speech !
No Wonder Why SRK was the Host for These Royals.
LEGEND!
he is called king khan for reasons…love him….he has such intelligence….
Prince William got to meet The Global Queen
Lol
SRK can only do this, being the most intelligent, intellectual, witty, humble person in industry.
Why didnt he mention India is intolerant…?
Yes no doubt srk is the best person to welcome anyone royal bcz he is king himself.
A Royal superstar to welcome the Royal couple..good speech..
KING’s speech for the PRINCE
Real royal people with self proclaimed king :)
He is so obsessed with being called great and a king!!! Sorry, Bhagoda king, Phanka will earn 120 crores and Miyan Bhi Ki Darr will earn 130 crores!! No matter with whom you do events or take photographs!!!
Why doesn’t he get invited by Modi or other Indian ministers? Why always by foreign personnel? What is the reason??
SRK said “India is the most colourful and warmest of nations that you’ll ever visit in your life”
now why this is not highlighted by some stupid people of the country ??
they criticized for no reason during intolerance thing…..
srk shuts down every hater of him with this patriotic speech. Proud of india. Proud of srk
@satyam Salman fan. I can made a better poster than crap sultanbposter. No vfx at all
He is not only an actor-he is an all-rounder..great man
king khan ???
3days 2 go SULTAN Teaser….
This eid only sultan
YRF launches FAN Theme Song today. It is basically the background music of the trailer so nothing new. But the theme is so AWESOME and played a big role in making the trailer epic. So for those interested following is the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aH8gXIscR8
Indicine is turning into a salman fan,Sultan poster was looking so fake,How could you call it outstanding and before that making srk films starcast rating 9.Supporting salman in the clash.I am not liking this.
Copying below a recent interview of SRK on Fan:
Q. Looking back at your performances one realises that there have been quite a few split personality, multiple identity or double role films — Duplicate, English Babu Desi Mem, Don, Karan Arjun, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Baazigar, Om Shanti Om, Ra.One… Where does Fan fit in with this genre of SRK films?
A. The concept of the film is very different from those you mentioned. You could have made this film with a star and a fan. But then the pitch in it was that he should be a lookalike. We could have still found a lookalike, a young boy may be. But the further pitch was that it had to be played by the same actor. Which was also ok, afterall you are doing a double role which has been cracked successfully ever so often with technology. But the whole point of the exercise was that at the end of the film nobody should say they are the same people. We could have taken different people and made this film but then it wouldn’t be as fantastic. It would be any other story like XYZ.
If we have the same people and at the end of the film you come out saying “ye dono alag the” or at the beginning of the film you forget in the first ten minutes that it’s the same guy doing the two roles. The challenge was that. You would want to remember both the roles may be, or one more or less. But they both had to be two totally different people and dignity of both had to be maintained. They are both right, or wrong, neither is just black or white. Have we managed to do it? When you see the film, in the first ten minutes or the last half hour and say “oh that wasn’t Shah Rukh”. If you are able to come out of the film and say that the other boy was good, that’ll be nice. I hope I have been able to play the other boy well.
Q. To forget that the boy is Shah Rukh is a big deal, a very big deal…
A. Yes, it is a very big deal. It’s a character created by five six people. Maneesh’s writing, Adi’s belief, the VFX, costume and makeup people’s inputs, my acting. It has been created by several people’s personalities. And what we all think is a guy who should not be Shah Rukh. I don’t think anybody ever spent so much money to make me not look like Shah Rukh Khan. So much so that if you ask me about Gaurav (the fan) I would say you should interview him separately. It’s all so schizophrenic and dichotomous. I don’t know what to say about him. Gaurav is a most unique character. It’s a beast created by many people with their thoughts on what a fan should be.
Every fan is different so everyone has given different inputs. The whole has become more than the sum of its parts. Every fan will see a part of himself or herself in Gaurav. Being a fan is a very generic, universal, normal thing. To curb it to just one point of view—that of the actor—would have been uncalled for. It’s a free-flowing, not organic, very set-piece, very rehearsed, practiced, crafted character. The voice, the walk, the losing weight but those things get hidden under the overall feeling of a fan.
Q. I would have assumed that in this fan-star binary you would have felt closer to the other role, that of the star…
A. For the other role I can say that it was difficult because I am a superstar but am not playing myself. The flamboyance is gone. He is more real, practical, grounded, patient. He is a star on the wane or on the rise but he is not me. He is not Shah Rukh Khan. We have taken away the flamboyance of the Billu Barber star. He is not a big guy, dancing or singing. I made him a little more real, human and a lot less mad than I am in real life. He is more of a proper father, husband. More boring, little more scared than me. He is a guy in his private, quiet space. It’s an extremely different take. Adi and Maneesh would not be so unfair as to say that “you are playing Shah Rukh Khan in real life”. That’s too personal. They had a character in mind. For me to play a superstar and then remove myself from it to be a star that I am not was more challenging.
And yet I had to retain the generic-ness of what people think a superstar is. Gaurav is really cool but I would say Shah Rukh played the other role damn differently. There is a scene in the film in which a rich man tells me “itna paisa diya hai, c’mon deliver the job”. I would beat up the guy if he spoke to me like this in real life. My character loses it for a second but then says “I am on it sir”. For reasons of decency he has to maintain a stoic silence, swallow his pride and just go away. In a real world it may happen like this but I, as a superstar, live in a very unreal world.
Q. Did you identify with Gaurav, the fan, in any way or is he completely out of your zone?
A. How to identify with him? If I were to put him in a larger context he is a lover. If people identify me as the greatest lover in the last two decades then I identify with him. He just loves and he loves unconditionally, innocently, like a 25-year-old who doesn’t understand the magnitude of his right or wrong. He is not a psychopath, he is not a dangerous criminal. He is a guy who loves. At 25 you are allowed to do anything, believe in anything. At 25 I could have been like this, not idolising someone but say in my decision to do a film like Darr. Even now I am a little like that. I am too positive about a lot of things.
Q. As a star with zillions and millions of fans what is the boon/bane bit about them?
A. Lack of privacy or that extra bit of effort to touch you—that doesn’t rattle me. When I meet my fans I am not being gracious, I am being grateful. By telling them that I love them I am actually thanking them. I come from a middle class family, I have become a big star, I have all the trappings of stardom—I am financially well off, happy, have a lovely family. I can only thank people for liking me so much. I am alright not going to a restaurant and eating, I didn’t want to. The fans have given me the opportunity to buy that restaurant and keep it in my house if I want to. There is no price to pay really. I wanted to be a movie star—the biggest, most loved, hugged. I don’t want that to go away. This is what I live for. I get very disturbed when people are not nice to someone who admires them. Every little opportunity I get to meet the people who have made me who I am, I take it up. Whenever I am low, down and out, things are going bad and when the fans hug me or touch me even after a bad film I wonder that I mean so much to them, that I matter. Normally you matter only to your family but if you have a family of billion people I think it’s a blessing. Someone told me that there is this burden of expectations. Well, then don’t be a superstar. Be a regular guy.
Q. Have you known any of your fans personally? By name?
A. Names I wouldn’t know of my own family members. I am bad with names. I don’t want to make my fans feel that I am being patronising. They are equals. They are even more equal than equals. I know a lot of them around the world. The German girls are amazing, they meet me, never trouble me. I can actually leave my kids with them to look after. I have so much faith in them.
Q. Have you been an ardent fan of anyone?
A. Being a fan, being in love requires time. Being in love is a luxury. I was 15 when I lost my father, 20 when I lost my mother. I started working when I was 15. If I wanted to be a sports fan I didn’t have the time for it. Before I could become a fan I became a star. Now I am AbRam’s (his little son) fan. I have the luxury of sitting and watching him, taking a picture with him, writing something for him. I love Michael Jackson, Madonna, I have met them but not taken a picture with them. I liked people but never had time to idolise. You idolise someone when you have time to become like them. I had to work, make ends meet, look after myself and my orphan sister. Before I knew it time had gone to be a fan. May be later when I am free I will be a fan of someone.
Q. Romance, song-n-dance make way for VFX in Fan. Is the film a very different zone for typical SRK fans?
A. What is a fan? You will love me no matter what I do. Personally I am not very romantic, I am very awkward doing the romance that I do. Songs have been a bane of my life and then to be known for the stuff you are uncomfortable with! I wanted to be a character artiste when I came in to the industry. By some quirk of fate I have become the most romantic hero.
Q. How was it working with a new, young director like Maneesh?
A. Maneesh I have known for long, from Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi when he was the AD. He has a very different mindset which is Dilli. And I am like that. We have a lot of commonality so it was good to go back to that rawness and say that this is what I came to do and now I have got the opportunity. It’s not that I have lacked opportunity. It’s just that everything doesn’t come the way you expect it to. I don’t write films for myself but I like doing things which I haven’t done before even if it’s an action thriller which has been done ten times by someone else. I did a love story, DDLJ, five years after the launch of my career. It was new to me. Rohit Shetty’s Chennai Express I did because I had never done the amazing, over the top humour. Suddenly with this film I get to be the actor I wanted to be 25 years ago. Someone has to give me an opportunity. Everybody gets caught by the stakes too. Here’s this kid who doesn’t give a damn. It’s nice to have someone who takes the chance. And then you have a producer like Adi who won’t go wrong with it. It is very brave of Maneesh to cast me in a film which is unlike mine.
Q. How do the VFX of Fan differ from say that of Ra.One?
A. Ra.One is in your face VFX, this is more breakthrough than it. It will push the boundaries of VFX to a different level in this country. It took us eight days to shoot the interval scene and nine months to see what it looked like finally and that scene is just two and a half minute long. Seven seconds of what you see on screen has been worked on by 300 people for seven days. It’s never been done in the world. They have done it for two-three minutes in Captain America. Ra.One was a very difficult film to make. This has happened because Ra.One happened otherwise you wouldn’t have the knowhow. Having said that it is ten times more difficult film than Ra.One. And you will come out of the film asking “par VFX the kahan”. We assume in India that VFX is flying, guns and cars. But this is just a film about two men. With just one of two flying shots.
Best lines of the above SRK interview:
“Gaurav is a most unique character. It’s a beast created by many people with their thoughts on what a fan should be.”
@ Indicine : Apologies for spamming but either allow the article below (copying from another website) or kindly give a separate update of advance booking yourself. Thanks.
From Housefull To Filling Fast Mode: Fan’s Region Wise Advance Booking Report
The advance booking for Shah Rukh Khan’s much-awaited thriller Fan has commenced from yesterday and the responses are quite startling. With all the Shah Rukh Khan fans excited to flock to theaters for this one, the film’s shows in certain cities such as Mumbai and Delhi have gone upto 20 in one day. The ticket rates have been hiked and hence for a night show in the VIP class, one may have to fetch tickets ranging from 1000- 2000 rupees.
Here’s a city wise break down of the advance bookings for the weekend so far :
Delhi :
Delhi is one of the major consumers when it comes to cinema and hence major multiplexes and single screens have opened the advance bookings. For Friday i.e the release day of the film, the morning shows are mostly sold out. Also the late evening shows are mostly going full.
The bookings for Saturday evening shows is sold out including tickets ranging from 1000 to 2200 rupees which shows the film’s huge appeal.
For Sunday, the morning and matinee shows on a filling fast mode.
Mumbai :
Mumbai being an important circuit for business, the Friday bookings are huge. Morning shows are on a filling fast mode where as, evening and late evening shows also filling fast and sold out at certain screens.
For Saturday, there is almost full and filling fast mode for morning shows. Night shows at multiplexes are sold out. The ticket prices are as high as 700 for the night shows.
Morning shows and matinee shows on Sunday are almost full. The booking for late night shows may surge by Friday.
Pune :
In Pune, the morning shows for Friday are housefull in most cases. The evening and night shows too are on a filling fast mode.
The Saturday booking seems to be a little lesser. Other than a few morning and matinee shows filling fast, not much response for evening shows can be seen as yet.
For Sunday, only morning shows are showing bookings and major theaters are yet to open their booking windows for Sunday.
Bangalore :
Bangalore has recorded an average advance booking so far. For Friday, the morning and late evening shows are showing good responses.
For Saturday, not many screens are showing bookings. A few morning and matinee shows are on a filling fast mode.
Sunday bookings for the late night shows are better.
Chennai : (Only two screens opened yet with 4 shows on an average in the day)
Chennai has only two screens opened yet with 4 shows in the day yet. With these limited screens the Friday bookings for nights shows is full where as Sunday booking for morning shows is picking up.
Hyderabad :
Hyderabad is showing a great response for the Shah Rukh film. For Friday morning, most shows are almost full or sold out. A similar scene can be observed for its late night shows as well.
Saturday too looks great with most shows on filling fast or almost full mode.
Sunday could be big in Hyderabad as most shows in the day are showing a filling fast sign.
Kolkata :
Shah Rukh’s charm is all over Kolkata too. Friday looks big with morning shows going houseful in most cases.
The bookings for Saturday are surging and evening shows are filling fast.
Even Sunday has overall most of the shows on a filling fast mode.