Shah Rukh Khan reveals iconic arm pose was a Saroj Khan fix as he couldn’t do a dance step: ‘I was quite ashamed of myself’

Every time someone has to imitate Shah Rukh Khan, all they do is stand tall, stretch their arms, tilt their body a little and look into their audience eyes, and the audience melts. Over the years with films like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham or Mohabbatein, the actor has gained a massive following around the world for his distinctive pose. Recently, during a live interaction at the Locarno Film Festival, the 58-year-old actor revealed how he first discovered his now-iconic pose.

During the interaction, a fan asked the actor to tell the back story of his iconic pose. After taking a while to recall the exact situation, Shah Rukh Khan said, “I think what happend is in Indian cinema, especially during the 90s, dip was a real thing.” The actor stood up to show the dip while asking his audience to hum a song for him. Then the actor added, “I couldn’t do dip. Because of this, I was quite ashamed of myself. All night, I kept practicing it in my room. The next morning, I remember saying to my choreographer Saroj Khan, ‘Ma’am, ready?’ She said, ‘Yes, but as you cannot do dips, you just stand there and put your arms out. I did dips for her and she was like, ‘No, no, don’t do it. It doesn’t look nice on you.’ So, she didn’t let me do the dip and I had to put my arms out.”

He added, “Then I went to a different set and it was quite difficult to do a step, so I just asked Farah, let’s cut it out and just put the arms out and I kept repeating it. Because, I was using the pose so much, I had to do it more intensely and eventually, I made it scientific.

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Shah Rukh Khan, stood up once again, to explain how he made his pose scientific and while doing the pose, the actor laughed and said, “I am only fooling you all. There is nothing, it is just arms out”.

The iconic pose has become synonymous with the actor over the years with Ed Sheeran being the recent one to recreate it. During his India tour, the actor met with the Dunki star and recreated his pose. A video of which was all over the internet. Even during the IPL 2024 finals, Shah Rukh Khan celebrated his team KKR’s win with his iconic pose which made headlines.

Shah Rukh Khan was recently honoured with Pardo Alla Carriera Award at the Locarno Film Festival for his contribution to cinema. The actor is all set to star in Sujoy Ghosh’s action-thriller King. The film will also star his daughter Suhana Khan.