3 min readMumbaiNov 23, 2025 11:39 AM IST
Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has collaborated repeatedly with several actors, including Nagarjuna, Manoj Bajpayee, and Amitabh Bachchan. RGV maintains that he casts actors strictly based on the demands of the story and its characters, rather than their stardom. The same approach, he says, guided all of his films with Bachchan, from Sarkar (2005) to its 2017 threequel Sarkar 3.
“Amitabh Bachchan actually has a very immobile face, which is unusual for an actor of that repute. But the way he conveys through his eyes and voice modulation, without moving, is an extraordinary thing because that gives him an inherent dignity and an inbuilt poise and classiness, which happens very, very rarely. To my knowledge, there’s no other actor who can do that, in India at least,” said Varma in an interview with The Hans India.
On Shah Rukh Khan being heralded as a worthy successor to Amitabh Bachchan, Ram Gopal Varma countered, “Shah Rukh has a very different style, in terms of his charm and everything. Also, the kind of cinema that I grew up on, that impacted me, are Deewaar (1975), Trishul (1978), and Zanjeer (1973). That’s why I take to Amitabh Bachchan. Shah Rukh Khan’s romantic films aren’t my type of films. So, I’d be the wrong person to comment on Shah Rukh Khan.”
He doesn’t believe he can work with Shah Rukh in a film even after the actor’s image makeover as an action star post the blockbuster success of Siddharth Anand’s spy thriller Pathaan and Atlee’s crime thriller Jawan a couple of years ago. “I’m not capable of working in a film with Shah Rukh Khan because of what his fans expect from him. That’s not the kind of cinema I’m qualified to do,” argued Varma.
Ram Gopal Varma has worked extensively with Amitabh Bachchan, their most memorable collaboration being the three-part political franchise Sarkar. Besides that, Bachchan has headlined Varma’s films like Nishabd (2007), Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag (2007), Rann (2010), and Department (2012). RGV has even worked with Bachchan’s son Abhishek Bachchan in Naach (2004), Sarkar, and Sarkar Raj (2008), which also starred Amitabh’s daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai.
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Varma did consider working with Shah Rukh once, for his 2002 crime thriller Company, but changed his mind immediately after meeting the actor. “My first instinct actually was to cast Shah Rukh. I went and narrated the story to him. Shah Rukh was interested too. But I somehow felt that Shah Rukh has a certain natural body language, very energetic. Now, the idea of Company, Malik’s character, is that he’s a very subtle guy. He’s leaning back, he doesn’t get excited, and he’s cold-blooded in his thinking. I thought Shah Rukh’s natural energy would go against that. To make him still, I felt, would be doing an injustice both to him and to the film,” said Varma, who then approached Ajay Devgn to play the part.
Ram Gopal Varma says he can't imagine working with Shah Rukh Khan.