With his legions of fans as far away as Melbourne, if anyone has the power to transform Indian film it’s superstar SRK

On a freezing cold night outside the Palais Theatre in St Kilda, a feverish crowd braves the spitting rain and bitter winds, restless, eager. The red carpet has been rolled out for the 10th annual Indian Film Festival in Melbourne and the Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan is this year’s guest of honour – and he’s running two hours late.

Khan, known simply as SRK, has starred in more than 80 feature films to date. His legions of fans include bespectacled aunties in sensible trainers, girls with glossy Parachute Coconut oiled hairdos, fidgety teens who pretend their parents haven’t accompanied them. “Where is he?” wails a young woman, rattling the barricade opposite Luna Park. Meanwhile, a soft, teasing chant of “Shah Rukh, Shah Rukh, Shah Rukh”starts up, as tabla players begin to circle.

When Khan finally arrives, joyful hysteria breaks out. People unselfconsciously climb over the metal barriers to surround him. Traffic grinds to a halt. Grown men trip over each other to get closer. Hands and legs fly in the air. Khan graciously waves and blows kisses, snapping selfies with the crowd. People dripping in bling and designer-wear scramble like schoolchildren to follow him into the theatre.

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Khan is not simply the “king of Bollywood”, but one of the world’s biggest movie stars. Since arriving in Australia to open the Indian Film Festival he has also received an honorary doctorate at La Trobe University for his film work and his work supporting women’s empowerment, at another event attended by legions of fans. Khan may be living the life of someone with an estimated net worth of over US$600m now, but he tells Guardian Australia that his earliest memories of cinema are much simpler.

“My mum was a big movie lover, so I would sit down and press her feet, like most Indian kids do for their parents,” he says. He describes the early “anti-establishment” films of Amitabh Bachchan as inspirational because they proved that someone didn’t need to be highly educated to be successful. As a young aspiring actor, that offered Khan a breakthrough: he was able to adopt a spirit of “OK I want to take things into my hand and make it big.”

We have a great culture of stories in our country. We just need to express them in newer ways Shah Rukh Khan

Khan describes Bollywood in the early 1990s as a “liberal, happy time”. “Yes, you have to work hard; yes, you have to come first; yes, you have to get a job but love was important, too,” he says.

“When I became popular, the kind of cinema I did was maybe not so thought-provoking … It was more entertainment-provoking.” He namechecks some of his early hits: My Name is Khan, Chak De! India, Swades. “What happens is a star does get defined clearly for entertainment. So you can’t veer too much away from that. It can be disappointing for your audience. But as an actor, I need to find more interesting things to do within the gravitas of stardom.”

People certainly find him entertaining, even in Australia, though perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising. Australia’s Indian population at the last census was 455,399, the largest number of which were in Victoria. Meanwhile, the presence and accessibility of Hindi language films here has only grown: at least 15 Bollywood films have been shot in Australia since the 90s, including 2005’s Salaam Namaste and 2001’s Dil Chahta Hai. Major national cinema chains like Event and Hoyts also curate a rotating selection of the latest Indian movie releases every season. The catalogue of Hindi language films available on major streaming platforms is also growing, dubbing and subtitling breaking down language and cultural barriers for what was once known as foreign cinema.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shah Rukh Khan: ‘My mum was a big movie lover.’ Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

Many early Bollywood films follow a trusted formula: boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, and conflict bubbles as they struggle for family approval. However, a new generation of filmmakers are challenging whose stories deserve to be told and how, such as the director and screenwriter Zoya Akhtar, also a guest at this year’s festival, whose latest feature film, Gully Boy, fictionalises the lives of young Mumbai street rappers who chase dreams of fame while writing and performing music with autobiographical lyrics. It’s been called Bollywood’s first hip-hop film, and would have been unheard of in the industry 20 years ago.

“The understanding of India is that India is not one thing,” Akhtar says, when asked how international audiences have grown to interpret the subcontinent. “It’s not a monolith. It’s massive. It’s varied in terms of culture, language, food habits … So it’s not simple. You can’t just express it in one word.”

“Historically, our cinema is a unique format: two and a half hours, an interval, not just one single storyline,” Khan says. He believes that will soon change: that with younger Indian filmmakers watching more international cinema, Hindi films will go beyond standard song-and-dance structures. “I think all of that should get made into an international storytelling style. There’s so many more stories for the world to take up. … We have a great culture of stories in our country. We just need to express them in newer ways so that we get more of an international audience attaching themselves to it.”

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Mitu Bhowmick Lange, the director of the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, says that mythology, Bharatanatyam dance techniques, and the tradition of travelling musical theatre is at the root of India’s ancient folklore and cultural identity – traditions that are far older than the Indian film industry, which dates from the early 1900s. “That style of storytelling is very ingrained in our culture and in our history. I don’t think that can be removed that quickly or that easily, if at all.”

Bhowmick Lange says that it’s those elements of escapism and romance that set Bollywood apart from other kinds of cinema, especially in appealing to its primary audience: everyday Indian citizens. “At the end of the day, these films are also catering to somebody who is working around 18 hours and earning the equivalent of $2 a day. So that person, too, needs … three hours away from all their worries,” she says.

For Khan though, the dream project is to go right back to the earliest forms of Indian mythology. He says he has long wanted to adapt the Mahabharata, one of the two epic Sanskrit poems based on a sacred Hindu text, for the screen. “Literature in Hindi, in Sanskrit, I think is amazing. All we need to do is to put it in a uniform which is more internationally accepted. I think it’d be fantastic.”

• This article was amended on 13 August 2019 to correct the reference to Shah Rukh Khan’s net worth to being over $600m, from US$6m as an earlier version said.