Mumbai, August 21: Reel seemed to spill over to real last week when actor Shah Rukh Khan was detained by immigration officials at the Newark airport for questioning. The incident – critics say – comes coincidentally close on the heels of his film My Name is Khan that purportedly deals with Muslim identity in a post-9/11 world. But in an exclusive interview with CNN-IBN Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai, Shah Rukh Khan dismisses the suggestions that it’s a publicity stunt, speaks his mind on America and how it needs to change and how he and many others will have to live with the reality of having “common surnames”.
Rajdeep Sardesai: Our newsmaker of the week is making the headlines, not for what he does on screen but what he did off it – the one and only, Shah Rukh Khan. Impossible to keep off headlines but that’s the way you are, isn’t it?
Shah Rukh Khan: Yes. I step out and I become a headline.
Rajdeep Sardesai: You enjoy it, eh? It almost seems as if Shah Rukh revels in the moment.
Shah Rukh Khan: I start enjoying it because if you can’t fight it, join it. So it’s okay. This is the life I have chosen, Rajdeep. And I can’t do anything about it.
Rajdeep Sardesai: But the reasons why this time you are making the headlines have led to some adverse publicities. Critics say that the entire detention in America has been hyped by Shah Rukh himself as some kind of publicity for your film My Name is Khan. It’s part of SRK’s attempt to remain in the news. How do you react?
Shah Rukh Khan: As a matter of fact, I am averse to being in front of news when I am not really doing it for my film. My film is coming much later. It’s eight-nine months away. Normally you don’t start publicity of a film that early. Second, it’s not very positive to be questioned, to have someone asking someone to be vouching for you in someone’s wonderful country. I think it’s a little disrespectful. I wouldn’t use that as a part of publicising myself, neither I am that kind of a person. So may be those who say this believe in designed things like that.
–Agencies