He’s bought the rights, so will Shah Rukh also play the lead role in Hey Ram?

By Nichola

on April 04, 2018

At the recent panel discussion with Interstellar and Dunkirk director Christopher Nolan, veteran actor and filmmaker Kamal Haasan also met his Hey Ram co-star Shah Rukh Khan. Naturally, it was nostalgia time as Hassan and Khan had worked together on the film nearly 20 years ago. But there’s more than just great memories of their time together…

Apparently, Shah Rukh has bought the remake rights of the hard-hitting film, which Kamal had written, directed and acted in.

The veteran confirmed the news saying that Shah Rukh had only got a wristwatch for acting in Hey Ram film at the time because by the end of it, he had nothing left in hand! “Now, he is the brand ambassador for a watch brand. I am glad that he got the Hindi rights of Hey Ram from Bharat bhai (co-producer Bharat Shah). He should have some memory of the film as he gave his friendship and service for it.”

Hey Ram, which released in 2000, is a historical fiction-political thriller simultaneously made in Tamil and Hindi languages. The film had raised eyebrows with its semi-fictional plot which centred around India's Partition and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by Nathuram Godse.

The film had also featured Rani Mukerji, Hema Malini, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Atul Kulkarni, Vikram Gokhale and Nassar among a host of other actors.

With SRK acquiring the rights, speculation arises about whether he plans to play the protagonist Saket Ram, as and when he does remake the film. It would be a controversial though landmark role for the actor. In the original version, Shah Rukh had played fellow archaeologist Amjad Ali Khan to Kamal Haasan’s Saket Ram. The film is told in flashback, as the retired archaeologist Saket Ram lies on his deathbed, on December 6, 1999, the seventh anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.