Kashyap on his love for the badshah, who he came close to directing on numerous occasions
MID-DAY (January 15, 2018)

His repertoire boasts of films that are significantly distanced from the kind that Shah Rukh Khan has featured in, but Anurag Kashyap vows to collaborate with the actor before departing from Bollywood. In his career spanning over two decades, Kashyap has been in talks to work with SRK on several occasions, but none of them materialised. Referring to his 2007 John Abraham-starrer, No Smoking, Kashyap said, “SRK wanted to do No Smoking, and was upset when it [didn’t materiase]. I also went to him with Allwyn Kalicharan. I wanted to cast him alongside a Hollywood superstar. Things were almost locked, but again, it didn’t happen.”

Yet, Kashyap promises he “will not go anywhere without making a film with Shah Rukh Khan”. He adds, “We will work together. I will write a film that will lure him. He should be attracted to it.”

The director is in awe of the actor, who, he says, has given him a helping hand, “like a big brother.” “ When he loves you, he’ll approach things in a certain way. When I was struggling, [he’d tell me], ‘If you do what I tell you to do, your problems will disappear’. But I didn’t want him to make my life,” he said.

Kashyap, who has, over the years, earned the image of a rebel in Bollywood, said he can’t fight with Khan. “He is the only guy I can never speak up to. I can fight with the world, but not him. If he scolds me, I’ll sit in a corner and cry. I love him to death.”