NEWS: SRK never-seen-before action hero in Chennai Express

One is Bollywood's uncrowned king of romance, known to strike a pose on streets while singing for the woman he's wooing. The other is famous for making masala action films, where the hero gets down and dirty, beats up a dozen baddies and makes cars fly.

So what can you expect when Shah Rukh Khan (his last release, the Rs. 100 cr grosser, Jab Tak Hai Jaan, reaffirmed his romantic hero status) and director Rohit Shetty come together?

It seems, next year, SRK will don a completely new avatar. The actor's next is Rohit Shetty's action film, Chennai Express, in which he stars opposite Deepika Padukone. Rohit, part of whose fame rests on being the director of Ajay Devgn-starrer Singham (2011), is all set to make SRK perform stunts like he never has before.

A source close to Chennai Express says, "Rohit's films are popular for the action scenes. Whether they are comedies, like the Golmaal series, or they involve hand-to-hand combat, like Singham did, they have masala action, and Chennai Express will be no different. Audiences would never have imagined SRK performing stunts of this sort." Hard as it may be, try to picture SRK in Singham or Rowdy Rathore.

Currently, the film's (jointly produced by UTV Motion Pictures and SRK's Red Chillies Entertainment) 15-day schedule is in progress in Wai, near Satara in Maharashtra. The source adds that the action-packed sequences are currently being shot there.

"Out of the 15 days, seven days have been kept aside just to shoot the action scenes. And this will be raw action. It will have a dash of the south too. Audiences will see SRK do what Ajay Devgn has done before (in Singham, for instance)," reveals the source.

However, this doesn't mean Shah Rukh is new to the genre. His action repertoire includes Farhan Akhtar's Don (2006), Don 2 (2011) and Anubhav Sinha's RA.One (2011).

However, most of these films comprise classy, stylised action. The source says, "A lot of that is computer-generated. In the case of this film, there will be one hero who will take on five villains at one time."