Sushant Singh was inspired by Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge star.
Late actor Sushant Singh Rajput struggled in finding his space in the Indian film industry despite being phenomenally talented. Last year, on June 14, he reportedly died from a suicide attempt that sent millions of people in shock.
During his lifetime, Sushant became a symbol of hope for the middleclass dreamers as he rose from a life of a not so rich family to the heights of glamour in Bollywood. However, while career wise he was doing great by bagging some interesting projects, but he was quite open about not being able to find a place for himself in the industry and being stuck in a cultural dilemma.
In such confusion, he professed in 2017 while writing for HT Brunch that Shah Rukh Khan has helped him a lot to clear the confusions in his head. For the Dil Bechara actor, Shah Rukh was more than a star, he was Sushant’s inspiration.
Sushant wrote, “It wasn’t like I was unaffected by Bollywood, no. I was a huge fan of Shah Rukh Khan. I remember watching Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ) and thinking now here’s a cool dude. He is a great performer, but that’s not what impacted me most: Shah Rukh helped me sort out my confusion about who I should be. This was in the early ’90s and the economy was just opening up – we were seeing Coke cans for the first time, international brands were coming in, and I was fascinated…yet confused.”
“I didn’t know whether to embrace the West or be loyal to our culture. At this point came DDLJ, I was in Class VI, and Raj showed me that it was cool to have a beer, but then he also waited for Simran’s dad’s approval. There was a balance. It was the perfect marriage of an aspiring India and an India trying to hold on to its culture.” he continued.