LONDON, April 14 — The Indian film industry is changing and movies no longer have to have a song and dance sequence to be successful, Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan said yesterday.

Khan, who was in London on a brief visit to promote his latest film, told Reuters in an interview that while Fan had a theme song, the song did not actually feature in the movie and had been used purely for trailers.

Bollywood films traditionally have had complex musical scores and filmmakers have rarely resisted the temptation to insert a song and dance sequence into a film. Some films' success rates have been dependent more on the music than the plot.

Khan's latest film, which releases globally tomorrow, sees the actor playing a double role in which a lookalike fan is obsessed with a film star. Yesterday, Khan revealed a waxwork model dressed as the lookalike fan, Gaurav, at Madame Tussauds museum in central London.

When asked if he had ever met his lookalike in person, he said many fans often dressed like him. The 50-year-old actor, who has a massive international fan following, said he enjoyed using social media platforms to engage with his admirers.

Khan has 19 million followers on Twitter and said he reads 90 per cent of the content directed at him. However, the actor said he had shied away from using other platforms after his daughter criticised his pictures on Instagram, saying he was using too many colour filters on his images.

Khan, who has been acting for more than two decades, is regarded as a pioneer in the Indian film industry for experimenting with using graphics and special effects in his films. The makeup for his character Gaurav was done by the same artist who created Brad Pitt's look in the 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

But when asked about animation films, Khan said it would take at least another 5-10 years before Bollywood would be ready to embrace the genre. — Reuters