The filmmaker says Shah Rukh Khan was ‘extremely gracious’ and rendered his voice as a narrator for his new web series within 48 hours
Kavita Awaasthi (HINDUSTAN TIMES; January 28, 2020)

Kabir Khan recently released his latest directorial, The Forgotten Army — Azaadi Ke Liye, and many viewers were surprised to hear the voice of Shah Rukh Khan as the narrator in the web show. “As this is a true story, we have a bit of real footage in the beginning of each episode and Shah Rukh has very graciously voiced the introductions to all the episodes. I have known Shah Rukh since my college days in Jamia Millia Islamia (Delhi), as he was my senior, and we also participated in a stage show, Westside Story, together. I also studied from his notes he gave me during college and for people who don’t know, he was a brilliant student,” shares Kabir.

The series starring Sunny Kaushal and Sharvari is based on true events tracing the story of the brave soldiers from the Indian National Army who marched towards the capital, with the war cry ‘Challo Dilli’, to win back their country from the British. Before making the web show, the filmmaker had made a documentary in 1999, called The Forgotten Army, and since then, he tried to make a film on this subject multiple times, and he also spoke to Shah Rukh about it.

“I wanted to do this film with Shah Rukh and we spoke about it many times but we never took it beyond a point. I reached out to him with no expectations. You can’t just ask a superstar to do something in a project. So, when I was making the web show, something in me urged me to reach out to him and he was extremely gracious. Within 48 hours, he was there recording for us. And that was incredible as with Shah Rukh, discussing a film takes a year but with this, he did it within two days,” says Kabir, revealing that the actor refused to be compensated for the same.

Kabir admits that while this was the “easiest part” of shooting the show, the tough part was actually shooting the series on location which included shooting in jungles, rivers, war torn land, and doing action scenes there. “I always react to locations and feel alive there. Put me in a studio and my creative juices dry up. I go brain dead. This is a story that needed to be told using in the real locations, including the tropical jungles of South East Asia, the banks of the river Kwai, Thailand, and borders of Burma to recreate the battle between Burma and India. The locations were tough and every day, we would drive for two hours followed by a trek for two more,” says the filmmaker.