Aanand L Rai says he would fight with Shah Rukh Khan when latter was spending ‘so much money’ on Zero: ‘He is a king’

When Shah Rukh Khan and director Aanand L Rai embarked on the journey of making Zero, it sounded like a near-impossible project that was demanding in its visual effects and was quite expensive. Yet, SRK made sure that he left no stone unturned in the making of the film. While the movie did not work at the box office, Aanand L Rai still remembers the time he spent with SRK fondly. In a recent chat with Mashable India, Rai said that as soon as he and SRK met, they were extremely giving towards each other and were doing everything for love.

When asked about the high budget of the film, Rai said that he “would fight on this” and then shared with a laugh, “He is a king and I would think so much money… why?” In Zero, SRK played a vertically challenged man and at the time, the BTS footage of the film explained that to get every shot correctly, the makers had to shoot it five times over so they could accommodate the demands of the visual effects studio. The film was produced by SRK’s Red Chillies Productions.

“The making of that one film was like making five movies because we would have to take every shot five times. After Shah Rukh saw me for the first 3-4 days, he told me ‘You don’t stress about anything, I will do it.’ I would say, ‘Sir, you will get tired,'” Rai recalled. Praising Shah Rukh’s work ethic, Rai added that a machine could fail but Shah Rukh does not. “He can give the same shot the same way five times,” Rai continued.

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The director said that after he realised the arduous task they had taken on, he wondered if he should ask Shah Rukh Khan to change the character. “After a while, I was like ‘you walk as you want’ but he wanted to go ahead and do it. He takes big risks so what he gets out of it is his own,” he said.

Shah Rukh Khan and Aanand L Rai have not worked in any other film since Zero.