Shah Rukh Khan visits Switzerland This film by the Indian superstar has been showing in cinemas since 1995
Wife Gauri and daughter Suhana visited the Indian billionaire Ambani family's wedding with Shah Rukh Khan.
Image: IMAGO/Press Trust of India
Shah Rukh Khan supports and owns the Indian cricket team Kolkata Knight Riders.
Image: IMAGO/ZUMA Wire
Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan is a legend in his home country. He is one of the most successful actors in the world and can look back on a 30-year career.
Image: imago images/Hermann J. Knippertz
The iconic actor also campaigns for women's rights in India and supports families and entire villages.
Image: KEYSTONE
Wife Gauri and daughter Suhana visited the Indian billionaire Ambani family's wedding with Shah Rukh Khan.
Image: IMAGO/Press Trust of India
Shah Rukh Khan supports and owns the Indian cricket team Kolkata Knight Riders.
Image: IMAGO/ZUMA Wire
Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan is a legend in his home country. He is one of the most successful actors in the world and can look back on a 30-year career.
Image: imago images/Hermann J. Knippertz
The iconic actor also campaigns for women's rights in India and supports families and entire villages.
Image: KEYSTONE
Shah Rukh Khan has been called the "greatest actor in the world" more than once. However, his market is not Hollywood, but Bollywood - "King Khan" is now visiting us in Switzerland. A portrait.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- Shah Rukh Khan, known as "King Khan", is India's biggest film star, has starred in over 100 films and has a fortune of around 770 million dollars.
- In addition to his acting career, Khan uses his fortune and fame to support charitable projects in India, such as the "MEER Foundation", which helps women, and solar projects in rural areas.
- Despite his international success, Khan is less well known in Europe, but attends the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland to be honored for his 30-year career and extensive filmography.
If you only go to the cinemas in this country and are not tempted by Indian films on streaming services at home, you probably don't know Shah Rukh Khan. But perhaps the face looks familiar?
The Indian actor has starred in over 100 films in his home country and is known as "King Khan". SRK - as he is also known for short - is not only India's biggest film star, he is also one of the wealthiest and most successful actors of all time. According to the Times of India, his fortune amounts to around 770 million dollars.
That is more than Robert De Niro, Jackie Chan or Tom Cruise. The latter has around 620 million in his account.
But how can Shah Rukh Khan be so huge if Hollywood exists? The answer is more obvious than you might think: India alone has a population of 1.4 billion people - the USA has just 333 million people, Europe a good 740 million.
In Europe in particular, we are more closely tied to American than Indian pop culture. Nevertheless, the market for Indian films is probably bigger than that of Hollywood.
Strengthening its India
SRK also uses its fame and capital to help the Indian state. Or to give women the support and rights they need.
Khan also set up the "MEER Foundation", which empowers and supports women - specifically in the case of acid attacks, which still take place in India today. Women are often the victims, and SRC offers them help and protection through its organization.
The 58-year-old has also donated or invested millions to strengthen his country. For example, he built solar panels to supply seven villages in the Indian state of Odisha with electricity - they had lived without this technology for 61 years until 2009.
And when his favorite cricket team - which he also partly owns - won the Indian league in 2014, he donated the prize money to cancer patients in Mumbai and Kolkata. Even recently, during the corona pandemic, he not only helped research with donations, he also ensured that around 5500 families had enough to eat. They had lost their daily income due to COVID.
Khan married the love of his life
Although SRK tends to keep a low profile in private, he likes to appear at public events with his wife Gauri (53) and his three children.
Gauri and Shah Rukh tied the knot in 1991 after six years of dating. The family of five lives in a six-storey property in Mumbai - the Mannat House. It cost the actor almost 200 million rupees - around 2.1 million Swiss francs. Khan once described the 2,500 square meter villa as the "most expensive purchase of his life".
Their first son, Aryan Khan, was born in 1997. Three years later, the couple welcomed their daughter Suhana and in 2013 they gave birth to another son via surrogacy. He was named Abram.
The older children, Aryan (27) and Suhana (24), both want to follow in their father's footsteps - the daughter as an actress, the son as an author.
Lots of kitsch, action, absurdities
Unlike Hollywood, Bollywood doesn't have to worry about international revenues. Shah Rukh Khan's most commercially successful film is still very young: he shot "Jawan" - which translates as "soldier" - in 2023 and took 11 billion Indian rupees at the box office. That is equivalent to 116 million Swiss francs. With this sum, "Jawan" is the fifth most successful Indian film of all time.
Most works from Bollywood, the Hindi film industry, do not make it into cinemas here or in the USA. It is only through streaming services such as Netflix that we are able to watch individual works.
The market in general seems to be different. When you think of Bollywood, you think of kitsch, dance and song. But apart from romantic works, action films are also kitschy and exaggerated. Indian audiences love this kind of movie, uninhibited and entertaining, so the rules of physics are sometimes ignored.
Shah Rukh Khan has made countless rom-coms, action films and dramas in which he plays a heartthrob, hero or villain. He has also played more than one double role, for example in the action comedy "Duplicate", in which Khan plays a chef and a gangster.
Continuously in the movies since 1995
All this might not impress you much, because Shah Rukh Khan's resume is similar to that of some Hollywood stars. But one fact that can still be served up to you surprised even me: on October 20, 1995, Shak Rukh Khan was seen for the first time as a "romantic hero" in a film with "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" - translated as "Whoever comes first, gets the bride". And here's the thing: the movie has been running in a cinema in Mumbai since 1995, right up to the present day. The cinema "Maratha Maandir" wanted to remove it from the program in 2015 after 1007 weeks. Due to public protests, the cinema finally decided against it - and the film has continued to run ever since.
Now the "biggest movie star in the world" is also coming to Switzerland. SRK attends the Locarno Film Festival and is presented with the "Pardo alla Carriera" award. The award is intended to honor his 30-year career and his extensive filmography. Khan is an acting legend, even if he is probably less well known in this country. The award ceremony also includes a conversation with SRK in which he reviews his career.
The Locarno Film Festival takes place from August 7 to 17, 2024.
