Kinshuk Sen On Starring In Aditya Chopra's 'DDLJ' Musical, and What Shah Rukh Khan Said To Him

Kinshuk Sen, son of celebrated singer Palash Sen, was born into music but for a long time didn’t pursue it professionally. Even though he grew up backstage, grooving to the rhythm of his father’s band, Euphoria, Kinshuk attended UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) to study cognitive science. Soon after graduating in 2017, he landed a full-time research job in Los Angeles. The lab became his stage, research his script, but the melody of his childhood lingered.

“My mother is a professor of biochemistry and Papa is, of course, a singer. I had seen the very highs and the very lows of my dad’s career. I had also seen the stability of my mother’s career, and I asked myself, ‘Do I really want to go through this up and down?’ Maybe not,” Kinshuk recalls.

In the city of Hollywood dreams, Kinshuk’s stage aspirations were reignited. An audition led to a role, and soon he found himself on stage in the Aditya Chopra-directed, Come Fall in Love – The DDLJ Musical. The stage adaptation of the iconic Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) features Kinshuk as Kuljeet, a character originally played with brooding menace in the film by Parmeet Sethi. The musical began playing in 2022 in San Diego and, earlier this year, had its United Kingdom premiere at the Manchester Opera House.

“It was always my dream to be on stage, but I had suppressed it because of fear. Not anymore,” Kinshuk tells The Hollywood Reporter India over a Zoom call from Los Angeles, as he details how singing and acting eventually found him, even when he wasn’t actively chasing them.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

THR India: You were born the year DDLJ released. What’s your earliest memory of the film?

Kinshuk Sen: It’s so funny! The day I was informed that I landed a part in the musical, my mother told me that the first song I ever sang was “Mere Khwabo Mein Jo Aaye”. It is unbelievable, but true. I couldn’t pronounce it properly, so, as a two-year-old, I would sing ‘Mere Khaba-Cho Mein Aaye’ (laughs). And now to be here as part of the musical, where I am singing and dancing a version of the film on stage, is just surreal.

THR India: What was it like growing up in New Delhi, far away from the film industry, with a famous father?

KS: Honestly, kudos to my parents and grandparents, I truly felt like my father was just a normal guy whose nine-to-five job was on stage. I never felt like it was out of the ordinary. At school, my friends would tell me that they saw my father’s picture in the newspaper, but it was ‘normal’ for me because Papa’s first album came out when I was three. So, I’ve only known him to be famous.

THR India: Would you go on stage with him?

KS: I never sang with him at that time, but I started getting on stage with him when I was around six-seven years old. I used to sit behind Prashant [Trivedi], our tabla player. I was also in the studio listening to how Papa makes a song. But now that I’m doing it professionally, I have perspective and a whole other level of respect for everything that goes into what he has done, what he does. I feel, in the most unbiased way, that Palash Sen has to be one of the strongest stage acts that India has ever seen. Also, I mean, nepotism has a lot of different aspects to it, but he never called anybody to get me a job, and that’s how I would like it to be.

THR India: Watching him on stage from an early age would be of help to you for the musical now?

KS: Absolutely. I’ve had first-hand experience of what it means to command attention on stage because of him. I’ve seen him enthral a crowd. I’ve seen him change his tone a little bit or change his phrasing a little bit, depending on the crowd. And that is something that really helps me now as well, as a performer.

THR India: How would you describe the musical for those who haven’t seen it yet?

KS: We are an English show, which has 18 songs (all in English) and are performing it outside India. It is fantastic to perform in front of audiences that might not necessarily have any history with the film but are still so appreciative of the story and our culture. In the UK, our cast is mostly British, and in the US, it is mostly American. The response has just been phenomenal. The desis who attend the show are thrilled to see themselves on a big stage. Meanwhile, the ones who have not experienced our culture in any way are blown away by the sheer grandeur of it.

THR India: And all of this is live singing, with no background tracks?

KS: None. We are completely live. Obviously, we’re acting and dancing, but our band is also live. It is physically very taxing because the show has really high-power songs, especially for my character. I’m dancing and singing nonstop. Of course, the requirement is to be able to sing those songs completely live and to be able to perform at the same time.

THR India: How did you audition for this?

KS: I got an email from my manager who asked me to audition for it. When I realised that Aditya Chopra and Vishal-Shekhar [who have composed the music for it] were associated with it, my jaw dropped. Most of the cast had been selected by then, and I was one of the last few to join. I hadn’t met Aditya Chopra or Vishal-Shekhar before at all because I didn’t grow up in Mumbai, so I was never part of these circles.

I sent in about four or five tapes at one point. And then one day — I’ll never forget it — my mom and my sister were visiting me because I had acted in a film called In a Silent Way (2020). To buy an outfit for the premiere, we went shopping when all of a sudden, my manager informed me that I had landed the part. All of us just sat on the couch for a good five minutes, because we couldn’t believe it!

“When Shah Rukh Khan sir made a surprise visit to the rehearsal room in London, we were in shock because no one had informed us. We performed a track for him and the song ended with me being in the centre. He gave us so many compliments and later told me, ‘I had also started with musicals, but I couldn’t sing then. I can’t sing now. But at that time, there was another singer who used to sing for me. And his name was Palash Sen.’ I had goosebumps... It was serendipity. When I hugged him and thanked him, he told me, ‘I haven’t gotten the opportunity to meet your dad for so long, but I have such good memories. Tu bas yeh karta reh [just keep at it].’”

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