Shah Rukh Khan’s Fondness for Alia Bhatt: Sumit Arora Reveals Interesting Details

Shah Rukh Khan’s fondness for Alia Bhatt is well-known. In a new interview with Showsha, Jawan dialogue writer Sumit Arora has now revealed that it was Shah Rukh who insisted on having that Alia Bhatt dialogue in the film.

Sumit Arora’s Revelation

“I was a little apprehensive about Alia Bhatt. And SRK sir was like, ‘No, it’s nice. Let’s keep it. It’ll be nice.’ So it was on his insistence that we did the Alia Bhatt line. And I’m glad that everybody liked that. I’ve seen people chuckling to that line in theatres. I’ve been to Gaiety Galaxy (Mumbai), I’ve been to PVR, different kinds of theatres. Everbody actually reacts to the same things in different ways at every theatre,” Sumit said in the interview.

Sumit also added that he wanted to include the dialogue “Jab main villain banta hu na toh mere saamne koi hero nahi tikta” in the same sequence as a tribute to Shah Rukh Khan’s villainous turns over the years. “Of course, that line fits SRK. That line I really wanted to use in the sequence. That felt like a correct moment to say that line because of Shah Rukh sir’s history of playing those negative-shade lead characters in Darr, in Baazigar. It’s a hat tip to those characters. And people have actually loved him a lot in those characters, even in Don. So I felt that was a line that I couldn’t have missed writing,” Sumit added in the interview.

Shah Rukh and Alia

Shah Rukh co-produced Alia’s debut film, Karan Johar’s 2012 campus caper Student of the Year, under his production house Red Chillies Entertainment. He also co-produced and shared screen space with her in Gauri Shinde’s 2016 coming-of-age film Dear Zindagi. Last year, Alia made her production debut in a joint venture with Red Chillies with Jasmeet K Reen’s dark comedy Darlings on Netflix India.

Interestingly, both Shah Rukh and Amitabh Bachchan also invoked Alia fondly in their new ad for a masala brand.