SRK, in his characteristic humble style, once declared, “I am the last of stars" when asked about the next big thing in the industry. Even today, those familiar with him, both in person and through his movies, find it hard to dispute this claim. So, when a Ranbir Kapoor fan boldly proclaimed the ‘Animal’ actor to be a better actor than Shah Rukh Khan, it was clear that the internet wasn’t having any of it. In fact, they had a field day dismantling that notion, making it clear that comparing RK with King Khan is like comparing apples to oranges.
It all started with a user, @RitvikWrites, responding to a trend asking for bold Bollywood opinions. To this Ritwik asserted, “Ranbir Kapoor is overall a better actor than SRK in most of the genres. Ranbir can pull off roles in movies like Swades, Kabhi Khusi Kabhi gham, Veer Zara, Devdas but SRK can not pull off roles like Sanju, Tamasha, Rockstar, Animal."
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Predictably, this unleashed a tempest on social media, with SRK fans vehemently challenging the assertion, flooding the comments with reposts adorned with iconic SRK movie scenes to drive their points home.
One user countered, “Ranbir Kapoor can never romance like Srk. His only great chemistry is with Dp in which 75% credit goes to her. His voice modulation is worse than his contemporaries forget The Srk.. Rest, Srk has pulled enough versatility in 90s , everyone will spend lifetime chasing that." Another chimed in, “The worst take ever in Bollywood. Blud just said SRK can’t pull off movies like Animal & Tamasha…Can Ranbir pull off DDLJ, Mohabbatein??? No way. SRK is the best actor of bollywood for ages."
A third participant injected personal sentiment, recounting, “While watching Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, I wasn’t big fan of SRK. Throughout the film I was drooling over Ranbir’s performance. But the moment SRK showed up, I got to realise – ‘However smart a kid becomes, father will always be father’!" accompanied by a clip of SRK’s famous ‘Ek tarfa pyaar ki taakat’ scene from ‘ADHM’.
The fourth contributor distilled it concisely, stating, “SRK fans have a huge role to play in hyping Ranbir as a great actor rest assured he isn’t even 10% of what the world has seen of SRK and world hasn’t seen 10% of SRK the actor."
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Well, in a true ‘Baap, Baap Hota Hai’ fashion, SRK fans not only defended their idol but did so with a flair that left the viral post in the dust.
Location: Delhi, India