‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’: Parmeet Sethi calls Shah Rukh Khan the 'real villain'; says Raj took away Kuljit’s fiancée

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan has ruled hearts for decades and even earned the title of ‘King of Romance’, with countless iconic roles that made him one of Bollywood’s greatest heroes. But not everyone sees his on-screen characters as the 'good guy'.

Interestingly, two of his co-stars, Parmeet Sethi and Manoj Bajpayee, shared their views, saying that from their characters’ perspective, Shah Rukh’s roles could actually be seen as those of a ‘villain’.

Parmeet Sethi calls Shah Rukh the real villain of DDLJ

In the evergreen romantic classic ‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’, Parmeet Sethi played Kuljit, Simran’s (Kajol) fiancé. Simran, however, falls in love with Raj, played by Shah Rukh Khan. The love story went on to become one of the most loved films in Indian cinema, but Parmeet had an interesting take on it.

In a recent interview with Pinkvilla, Parmeet said, “DDLJ Mein Kujit ne kuch galat nahi kiya. Shah Rukh ka jo character hai Raj woh aakar meri mangetar ko le kar jata hai. Mein to nahi gaya tha.” (In DDLJ, Kuljit didn’t do anything wrong. Shah Rukh’s character Raj comes and takes away my fiancée. I didn’t go to take anyone’s fiancée.)

From Kuljit’s point of view, he was engaged to Simran and expected to marry her but Raj entered the scene and took away his bride. When seen that way, Raj, the supposed hero, could easily be viewed as the one creating all the chaos, the real ‘villain’ in Kuljit’s story.

Manoj Bajpayee sees Shah Rukh as a villain too?

Earlier, actor Manoj Bajpayee also shared a similar opinion about his role in the film ‘Veer Zaara’. He played Raza, who was engaged to Zaara (Preity Zinta), but she ends up falling in love with Veer (Shah Rukh Khan).

In another Pinkvilla interview, Manoj said, “Sagai Ho Chuki hai, Uski biwi kisi aur se chooch lada rahi hai. To mere liye to Shah Rukh Usmein Villain tha aur aap jo hai nafrat mujhse lar rahe ho." (The engagement is already done, but my fiancée is romancing someone else. So, for me, Shah Rukh was the villain in that story, but everyone’s hatred was directed at me instead.)

For him, Shah Rukh’s character was clearly the villain from Raza’s side of the story a man who stole his fiancée’s heart. Manoj explained that he always tries to see the story from his character’s point of view.

He further said, “When I am given a role, I think from the character’s perspective. Then I will be able to make it believable. That’s how my thought process was while approaching the role. For me, Shah Rukh was the villain (laughs). For Raza, Shah Rukh was a bad man. Since Raza was powerful, he could trap them. If he were not powerful, he would commit suicide somewhere, right? Or he would spend the rest of his life as Devdas. A man does whatever he can, in his own limits (laughs).”

Shah Rukh Khan on the work front

SRK will next be seen in ‘King’. The film is said to be an action-adventure directed by Siddharth Anand and will also star Suhana Khan, Deepika Padukone, Abhishek Bachchan and others.