Mumbai, Feb 29 (IANS) As Farah Khan's "Om Shanti Om" releases on DVD, complete with a 16-page booklet that gives an insight into the cast and crew of the movie that has come to be known as "OSO", I caught up with one of the stars of the film: Simon Hewitt.

Simon who? Shah Rukh Khan's Australian bodyguard. That's he.

Movie buffs will recall Simon as the foreign bodyguard who appeared constantly by the side of Shah Rukh's Om Kapoor character in the blockbuster. Clad in a black suit, with ever-present dark glasses, the tall Australian-born actor (measuring 6.3 feet) cuts an imposing figure on celluloid.

At the scheduled interview location, a Mahim coffee shop, on the edge of Mumbai's "filmi" society, the patrons' excited whispers of "Om Shanti Om" rebounds as Simon enters.

So how does a 30 something Australian end up in the biggest Bollywood film of all time? "I got the part through an audition," Simon narrates, "In fact, I got a couple of films for SRK's production house Red Chillies in that one audition; the other being 'My Name is Anthony Gonsalves' ".

Simon, who swapped Melbourne for Mumbai four years ago, says, "I knew it was a big film. The hype was huge before we had even finished it. But who could have foreseen the circus that was to come following the release."

Looking back on the experience, Simon reflects, "I shot for 25 days over about four months. I had no idea what the film was about while I was shooting. In fact, it seemed a bit silly, but of course at that stage I didn't know that it was deliberately tongue-in-cheek."

But of the superstar himself, Simon says: "Shah Rukh seemed like a nice guy, a good mix of being both intelligent and practical. In one of the shots, he fixed my sunglasses when they kept falling off my face."