Sanjay Leela Bhansali REACTS To Shah Rukh Khan Calling Devdas A 'Loser': 'My Actors Didn’t Understand Why...'

Shah Rukh Khan has often talked about his views on playing Devdas, the self-destructive romantic in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film. There’s been debate over whether the movie glorifies toxic behavior, and Bhansali recently admitted that some actors had concerns about how the character was portrayed. However, Bhansali stood by his vision of Devdas as the ultimate romantic hero. He discussed this further in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter India.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali explained, “What is the story of Devdas? That he’s a loser, he doesn’t do anything, he gets upset… My actors didn’t understand why we’re telling this story. They said, ‘Oh, it’s romanticising alcoholism’. I said, ‘This is the story of a man who loved.’ What is our biggest duty in this life? To love and give love. Does anyone love like Devdas. I wanted to say, ‘If you love somebody, that’s how you love’. Devdas is a story of a man who loved. People have been making Devdas (for years). Why? They say he’s a loser. He’s not a loser. He’s the most noble of any of my characters. He loved Paro. You ask him anything, he would say, ‘Paro’. That is love. That is a love story.”

At the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, Shah Rukh Khan revealed how Bhansali convinced him to accept the role, despite SRK being reluctant, because he thought he was “too cool” to play Devdas. Shah Rukh revealed that his initial reaction was a no. “I said, no, he’s a loser, an alcoholic. I’m too cool to be Devdas! So, it kind of petered out, and then before leaving, he just said one thing, which still sticks with me. He said, ‘I’ll not make this film if not with you, because your eyes are like Devdas.’ So I said, okay. He said, ‘I would not cast anyone.’ And for a year he didn’t. Then we met again, and I said, ‘Okay, if you can’t find eyes like mine, I’ll do the film.’”