Arts & Culture
‘My Next Guest Needs No Introduction‘: David Letterman Interviews Shah Rukh Khan ‘If I can‘t do it with skill and talent, then I‘d better get into the hearts of people. And if they are loving me, let me just be nice and good about it.‘
Image Credit: Alison Cohen Rosa/Netflix
When David Letterman addresses his audience at the beginning of his show, ‘My Next Guest with David Letterman,’ he describes the fact that everyone in the room feels a general sense of ‘I don’t know.’ Which, somehow, everyone agrees that they understand exactly what he is talking about. Indeed, considering Letterman is introducing onto his stage a pivotal representative of India and it’s cinematic industry, adored by a fanbase of 3.5 Billion people (a whopping 43% of the world’s population), Letterman’s excited bewilderment poses as a perfect summary of the sentiment and surrealism cinemalovers experience when it comes to Shah Rukh Khan. The hour-long special proves an incredibly insightful special that both rejuvenates the boyish and humble charm radiated by Khan that fans have become familiar with over his near-30 year career, yet Letterman’s questioning into the ‘Badshah of Bollywood’s’ life also probes into new insights that allows us to appreciate and admire Khan more than ever.
affects the lives of their children, all prove ample means to reinstate the legitimacy of the Bollywood realm as a uniquely intimate, cultural industry - not just a care-free sphere of song and dance. What makes the episode is the irreplaceable wisdom and wit radiated by Khan himself. He clearly enjoys the level of fame he has attained and knows how to work his audience, yet there is by no means a shred of arrogance in his attitude towards the success he has attained. Indeed, Khan humbly professes his belief in his being a man of very little actual talent and skill, so the best he can hope to achieve is to inspire love in the hearts of his audiences, Achieving this, it is only logical, he chuckles, that the audience will come to love him too. Khan has an impeccable ability to mix comedy with pathos throughout the interview, one surprisingly engaging moment being the discussion of his mother’s impending death when he was fifteen.
Letterman and Khan share a very easy, playful camaraderie in the episode, each respectful and jovial towards one another both when seated in Letterman’s studio Understandably, one might brace themselves for some heavier, more intense viewing, in the US as well as in the scenes shot back at Khan’s home in Mumbai. This then yet Khan is remarkably able to lighten the mood by discussing his childhood philosophies allowed for an incredible outlook of just how much Khan means to the citizens of on death. His naivety had led him to detail to his mother all the horrible things he was India as they flock to the outside of his house - apparently, he details, till the early going to do (like making sure his sister never marries!) should she pass away, as he firmly hours of five in the morning. This will be run-of-the-mill information to native Indian believed that one would be prevented from ‘reaching their nirvana’ should they have fans, however what makes experiencing this information as part of Letterman’s unfinished business left on earth. Another precious piece of insight includes how, once show all the more exciting and refreshing is the fact that it provides the chance again sat around the dinner table, Khan jovially admits how the image of ‘Shah Rukh to emphasise the sense of sanctity within Indian cinema, and then subsequently Khan’ is indeed a myth - one which a shy person as himself feels that even he has to Asthe oneeyes of the most outspoken, poetry, demystify this in of Western viewers.charming and enthralling voices of Britishlive up to.Benjamin Zephaniah effortlessly captures the core of what it means to be Black in the modern world. This 2001 collection inhow particular is one that confronts the realities societal inequality hard-hitting, candid manner Khan jokes about he is frequently labelled as India’s answer toofTom Cruise, however in aThe fact that he is able to engage so honestly and with such a welcoming aura is flair of dark humour. What‘s published just shy ofinspiring, twenty years ago, so that even newcomers to the name might be hard it would be fairalbeit to saywith thataWestern audiences would be more, largelydespite ignorantbeing of what an completely so much is aarguable book that still feels apt inthis theiscurrent climate. pressed to argue against why such a charismatic man should be so thoroughly admired. understatementthis - and injustice - of chillingly a comparison in termspolitical of the stakes of Shah Rukh Khan’s fame. After all, as much as action-hero Cruise has tailored his One can only hope that Khan will be invited to engage in more interviews and features name out to be, it would be difficult to argue whether his person has reached the same on Western shores, not only to act as the figurehead for the potential of Indian cinema, levels of popularity and adoration as Khan, or that one of his earliest features has been but moreover so audiences can also feel embraced and entertained by the silver-screen’s devotedly replayed in theatres for over 20 years. most magnetic king. Tanika Lane Being allowed tid-bits of insight into Khan’s home, sitting at the dinner table with his wife, Gauri, and even being enlightened as to how Khan’s debilitating fame drastically
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