Happy Birthday, Salman Khan: 6 Movies Where Superstar Shed His Rowdy Image to Surprise Fans

Salman Khan is known for his style, glamour, action, and drama on-screen but there have been times when he tried to shed that tough image on-screen. Here’s the list of a few films that were quite anti-Salman Khan’s image.

He has style, drama, stardom, and an on-screen presence like no one else! Salman Khan is Bollywood’s quintessential hero and probably one of the last real superstars of the generation. The actor has turned a year older today but we bet that him turning 56 is never going to deter him from picking the roles which are super-stylish, full of action, and massy in every sense. He’s known for movies like Wanted, Dabangg, Kick, Ready, Andaaz Apna Apna, Maine Pyar Kiya, and Hum Aapke Hain Koun! – that is all about glamour, melodrama, heavy dialogues, and a commanding presence on-screen. However, even though he’s more popular for being the stylish action hero in Bollywood, Salman’s resume boasts of a few films that are quite surprising.

In his career spanning over 33 years, Salman has also done movies that did not belong to the rowdy image he enjoys among the audience. Here’s a list of a few films where the actor went out of his comfort zone to attempt something he wasn’t known for. And no, we aren’t complaining… he did fabulous acting in some of these films! 

This was yet another film in which Salman Khan played the role of ‘Prem’. However, in this one, he was the calmest looking man ever. The actor played a man who was inherently shy, always in search of his mother, so much introverted that it took him a lot of time to tell his fiancee ‘Gajar Ka Halwa Acha Bana Tha’.

You take his girl from him, and he will bring the entire world down to get her back. That’s what you expect Salman Khan’s characters to do on-screen. Bash some baddies and end up romancing on a yacht with the girl but in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, he played the man who quietly goes away, leaving his girl behind and keeps praying to God to reunite him with her. Not the Salman we know for sure!

Apart from the way he says ‘Arpita’, there were many things about Salman that surprised the audience. His character named Alok was the most soft-spoken man and someone who was just absolutely traditional. We know the actor from his ripped denim, the bandana wrapped over the forehead, and mouthing some super dramatic dialogues, but in Baghban, he was the simple man who got married to just the right girl and dedicated his entire life to his parents.

This, too, was quite a different film from what Salman Khan is known for. The actor plays the role of an AIDS patient in the film. Phir Milenge had a beautiful story and an even more beautiful attempt to start a conversation about a disease that is still considered taboo. This was an ahead-of-its-time film and Salman’s presence in it was definitely surprising!

Salman Khan played a mentally challenged person in the film who dies in the end. We don’t see the ‘hero Salman’ dying in any film. Even if he does in a few films, he comes back with more vigor… case in point: Karan Arjun. But, in Kyon Ki…, he totally did away with his tough-boy image and became a highly vulnerable man who wasn’t even aware of what he had lost in life. Salman was totally unpredictable in this film.

One of the biggest hits of Salman’s career, this was the film that made even his biggest critics stand up and applaud his work. The actor played the role of a simple Indian man who is stuck in Pakistan while helping a Pakistani girl reach her home. While the story was emotional, Salman played his character with so much sincerity that he inspired many real-life people in helping the people across the border.