Is Bauua Singh remotely similar to Kamal Haasan’s Appu Raja? Not at all, says Shah Rukh Khan

By Bollywood Reporter

on December 17, 2018

Shah Rukh Khan said that there are no similarities between his character Bauua Singh from his upcoming film Zero and Kamal Haasan’s 1989 film Appu Raja. In Zero, SRK has been cast as a vertically-challenged man while Mr Haasan played a dwarf, employed in a circus, in Appu Raja. Soon after the teaser of Zero released in January, comparisons between Bauua Singh and Appu Raja emerged as SRK addressed reports as such while speaking to a leading daily.

Asked whether there is ‘anything at all remotely similar’ between Bauua Singh and Appu Raja, SRK told a leading daily, “Not at all. This film is not about a vertically-challenged person. It’s about incompleteness.”

[caption id="attachment_183361" align="aligncenter" width="647"] SRK in a still from Zero.[/caption]

During his interview, SRK also said that Appu Raja was a ‘fantastic’ film and that Mr Haasan did a great job in it. “Another thing is that Appu Raja was fantastic. Full marks to Kamal sir to even attempt it. Only he, with his weird, intelligent way of thinking, can do it. One of the other things that we didn’t want to have is that it’s a given, that if you’re vertically challenged, you would be in a circus. We didn’t want that in the film,” SRK added.

[caption id="attachment_183445" align="aligncenter" width="609"] Kamal Haasan in a still from Appu Raja.[/caption]

In fact, SRK also said that Zero isn’t just about “height” but the film also depicts a significant message that life must be celebrated irrespective of obstacles and complications.

“Some time ago, after a prominent filmmaker saw the first promo, she sent me a letter stating, ‘You don’t know how people lead their lives in circus’. I wanted to call her up and say, ‘How can you assume?’ and ‘How wrong you are to assume that just because a person is vertically challenged means that he should be in a circus.’ But I didn’t. I don’t think she will still like the film. So, it’s alright. We wanted to break the myth that any kind of incompleteness leads to cynicism and anger. You can celebrate life in spite of being incomplete. So, it’s not about the height,” SRK said.

Directed by Aanand L Rai, Zero co-stars Anushka Sharma and Katrina Kaif. It is scheduled to release on December 21.