'I was shaking': Shah Rukh Khan’s movie Fan sparks debate a decade later

Dubai: Ten years on, Shah Rukh Khan's movie Fan still lingers.

Released in 2016, Maneesh Sharma's psychological thriller starring Shah Rukh Khan in a dual role as both a superstar and his obsessive lookalike fan did not set the box office alight. But it has quietly grown into one of the most talked-about films of Khan's career, a study in fandom, reflection and the blurred line between devotion and destruction that feels more relevant now than it did a decade ago.

To mark the anniversary, SCREEN sat down with Sharma to revisit the film's most debated moments, its thematic core, and what it was like to direct one of Bollywood's biggest stars at his most vulnerable.

On building Gaurav's world

The choice to have Gaurav Chandna, Khan's fan character, run a cyber cafe at the start of the film has often been read as deliberate foreshadowing of how the digital world feeds obsession. Sharma says the reality was more organic than that.

"When we were writing the character, the larger idea was that he comes from a middle-class family, not the brightest kid, so running an internet cafe was just a way to earn a living," he explains. "As for foreshadowing, I'm not sure how much of it was planned from the start. Filmmaking is a process, and such choices evolve when they fit the larger theme of the story."

On the polarising second half

Few aspects of Fan have been debated more than its second half, where the film shifts from slow-burn psychological thriller to full-throttle action. Sharma pushes back on the idea that the film was ever conceived in two distinct parts.

"For all of us, myself, my writers, Aditya Chopra and even Shah Rukh, the film was never conceived in halves," he says. "We viewed it as a continuous journey of an eccentric young man and his obsessive admiration for a star. By the midpoint, the intent was that the audience is so deeply invested in his emotional journey, making them ready to follow him wherever his path leads."

On the mirror scene

The film's most quietly powerful motif is its use of reflections, and the scene where Gaurav and Aryan sit facing mirrors together was actually the first proper sequence the team shot.

"Everyone was like, 'Aren't you nervous?' But I was very excited because I thought, if I can pull this off, then we're sorted," Sharma recalls. He had told his director of photography that he wanted reflections woven throughout the film, but never too literally. "Gaurav never looks at the mirror; he's only seen in it," he notes. "These were the kinds of thematic motifs we aimed to weave throughout."

On that one take

Then there is the shot outside Mannat, where Gaurav sees Aryan for the first time. What made it onto screen was the very first take, captured before anyone had a chance to overthink it.

"When I saw it, it hit me in the heart. I was shaking," Sharma says. His DOP worried the camera had lost focus. Sharma told him it did not matter. "Some moments just happen, and you have to be there to witness that magic."

On Shah Rukh's performance as Aryan

While Gaurav tends to dominate the conversation around Fan, Sharma is quick to point out that it is Khan's portrayal of Aryan Khanna, the star, that deserves equal attention.

"What Shah Rukh brought to Aryan is truly one of a kind," he says. Many of the character's most nuanced moments were Khan's own ideas, including a scene in a wedding sequence where a businessman shuts Aryan down. "These small, subtle moments are very difficult to explain, but you can sense the vulnerability he brought to the performance, and he did so with such gravitas."