On a crowded street in Mumbai, if someone screams Rahul and you see Shah Rukh Khan turn back, do not be surprised. After all, he had essayed a character named Rahul, eight times in a span of 20 years — from Darr (Rahul Mehra) in 1993 to Chennai Express (Rahul Mithaiwala) in 2013. But, contrary to what most people think, Rahul isn’t the name of the character that he had essayed most on-screen. It is Raj! On the Bollywood actor’s 57th birthday, we looked at some data about him.
Khan has played a character named Raj nine times on screen. In fact, the name of his first-ever appearance on-screen was when he played the role of a soldier named Raj Kumar Kapoor in a DD National series named Fauji. Since then, he was Raj eight more times, from Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman (Raj Mathur) in 1992 to Dilwale (Raj Bakshi) in 2015. This is also considering his cameo appearance where his character Raj Malhotra from Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge was reprised in a song in the 2007-film Heyy Baby. Apart from Rahul and Raj, he was Arjun and Ajay twice each.
Three decades and counting
After Fauji, Khan played an unnamed role in Pradip Kishen’s In Which Annie Gives it to Those Ones. However, his first major feature film was Raj Kanwar’s Deewana in 1992. He has acted in a total of 94 (released) films. The peak was in 1995 when seven films featuring Khan were released. This includes the all-time blockbuster Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, which holds the record for being the longest-running film in Indian cinema history. An average of three films featuring Khan were released every year since 1992. He, however, had no film releases in 2020 or 2021.
According to the analysis of data put out by Bollywood Hungama, Khan appeared in 16 films as himself and did eight cameos. Of the films where he played the lead role, six were blockbusters, 13 were super-hits and 10 were hits. This is among 60 films. This means almost half of the films that Khan acted in did well at the box office The others fared average or were flops.