Shah Rukh Khan talks to NDTV: Full transcript

Highlights

• Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, who is one of NDTV's 25 living legends, talks to Puja Talwar about his journey, the love he has got from the people and how he cannot thank God enough for giving him so much success.
• Puja: We are glad to have you with us at the 25 years of journey of NDTV. It's also been 25 years of your cinematic journey, and you too began from television. It was a time when we waited for The World this Week and of course Fauji. How has your journey been through these 25 years?
• Shah Rukh Khan: When I was speaking to Abhigyanji I realized that it's been so long and first of all congratulations and all the best wishes to NDTV. Thank you for giving me this honour, it's been extremely exciting. I miss my family here. I should have called them for this since the President was giving me an award and I wish you all here who work with NDTV, Dr. Roy and the whole team. I think you guys have done an amazing job. For me initially I was a little thwarted when NDTV started, I have a personal reason for it and then I will answer my journey with television. The reason was that you guys were single handedly responsible for closing down a cinema called Archana theater and we used to watch English movies there. I had seen my first English film Where Eagles Dare there and I was like yaar yeh kaun agaya theater main. Kyun bandh kar dia. And I think now strangely I am in films, I would still think that there should be a theater but I don't think anyone could have better utilized that space in any other way then NDTV. So wonderful that you came down there and wish you all the best. I have had a journey with television and with NDTV as a matter of fact. Somewhere I find myself a little attached to NDTV because of that. The first time we came there and it had opened up and I did my interviews and stuff. Yeah I started with television, as an actor to me the platform was never important. Just like before the interview I was telling you that time has just gone like this and suddenly it's 25 years. I think Sachin had joined in the same year as me, I used to think of myself. I never told Sachin about this; actually I have told Sachin and Anjali that you know in my own heart I used to feel that I could be as great as you. Whenever you scored a century I would feel that my film would also do well. It's strange connections you make in life and strangely now I think of television like that. So as long as television is blossoming as it has been and especially channels like yours I think my career will continue to do so as well. So yeah we have a similar journey. Too fast I feel sometimes, too quick, that's how life is and you have to enjoy it.
• Puja: As we were just talking you said you just can't articulate your experiences. As I just said, we all used to wait for you at City Fort when you used to come with the Fauji club and now you the King of the industry
• Shah Rukh Khan: Yeah its strange and I don't want to sound extremely nostalgic and reminiscing like that but when I am sitting with my co-actors now, the ladies specially, suddenly am talking to them and they are very friendly. We have a great time and we sit down and we chat and I think of them beyond equals actually and so do they, or so I assume.
• At times I will make a statement like why don't you do it like this and they will say no, no, no you are equating yourself to us which is wrong, we are not you. And for me things have happened so fast and in such a wonderful way and that's what I said when we were allowed to say three things; to teach people that gratitude, gratefulness to the Almighty, to my parents, my family now and everyone who has worked with me is actually overwhelming for me. Some days I feel how much gratitude can I show; because it's very difficult to keep giving back like this. So yeah these 25 years have moved so fast from the days of the internet and bank club and so much has happened and most of it good.
• I can't keep going back to all the sad things that happened to you like losing your parents etc. That has happened to everyone. But so much has happened that it's difficult for me to articulate it sometimes. I am like its too many things I can't put it in words, and now when we are talking about it I miss it, I kind of think about it and then I think of my younger co-actors and then I think like yeah actually I come from a background when very few people have had such a gifted journey as I have. Allah has been too kind, people have been too kind, I have just been given in fast, fast junctions. Like just now I was sitting with Waheedaji and she told me "Shah Rukh woh Chennai Express dekhke mai itna hasi itna hasi mujhe itni khushi huyi. And then I met another gentleman, Anish I think who said "You know what I like about you is that your energy does not waver. You are still 25." So I think it's been, the reason for this is I have been given so much that I feel obliged that I need to give back as much as I got. And I think I will fail finally and I am happy that I will fail because I will get much more love then what I have to give back.
• Puja: I don't think you will ever fail because you know the pulse of what your fans want. Forever young as they say.
• Shah Rukh Khan: I will give it my best shot so that it becomes equal at least. The love I have got I would like to give it back. But yeah it's ok if I don't do it. I can be selfish and say that I can take more from the people than I have given back to them.
• Puja: Also another thing that has been attached to your name recently is Powerful Khan. So what is power for you, I mean often seeing your name in the most powerful man in the world list. So what does it mean to you?
• Shah Rukh Khan: I don't understand that. When we see things from outside it seems that there must be lot of power here. My kids ask me, I was just speaking to my daughter and told her that you know, I have been chosen as one of the best 25 Legends and the poor girl asked me "What". I thought that she did not understand one of the words and so I was trying to explain to her the meaning of the word legend. She told I know the meaning, I didn't understand what you got it for. So I said for 25 years of work and I have never felt any kind of power. Apart from in the competence of the job that I do. I feel very powerful, I learn my lines, I try and use the space, I try to enact a scene, I try to feel it. I feel very powerful at that point of time. Besides that I have never felt powerful at all. I'm actually an extremely shy and introvert person and am always nervous about things. I need to be taken care of. So I have insulated myself with the work that I do. Surrounded myself there is so much work that I am given less access to the outside world because otherwise I will be completely exposed as a dithering, nervous rack kind of a thing. Am not at all powerful!
• Puja: If there is one thing that you have in you, just one thing, what would that be?
• Shah Rukh Khan: I would like to believe and I think I am not that wrong that I have the power to make people smile. And that is something I will not change and that power is what I will like to hold within myself and hold over as many people as I can. It's something I am very proud of.
• Puja: I don't know but I always come back to Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa. I mean Sunil was the name of your character, it is still very close to my heart and now first actor and then superstar. I know you hate numbers but now the actor has been left behind and number has been attached to gauge his power
• Shah Rukh Khan: A rose by any other name will still smell as sweet. So if you want to call me in 200 clubs or whatever, because the core of I do is still that I just know about how to act. I will never show off my talent. I think people who genuinely believe they have a gift do not show off. I will not bore you with the technique of acting and how seriously I take it because its like, "mom can I have sarson ka saag" and she will be like "haan beta aaj maine nah kya kia hai thoda sa salt ko" aur, it will be very boring. I will not tell you the technique that I follow for acting but having said that, to me the most important part of being an actor is just being able to simply entertain, nothing else, nothing else at all. I don't want any other baggage attached to it. Yes if I am a public figure I have to do a certain things like wear my black suit and black tie and come and behave powerful and be articulate and say stuff, but the core of my existence is I just want to act and make you happy. I am a bandar, I am a monkey and I say this with the most amount of respect I have for entertainment. I am a puppet, am an actor and that's how I like to describe myself. There was a song from our times, Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer, I want to be your sledgehammer. And when you are in love you tell your girlfriend or your boyfriend that whatever you want me to be I will be. So I am in love with the audience that I perform for. So I want to be your sledgehammer, whatever you want me to be, I will be, and that I say with great pride, with huge amount of dignity and huge amount of self-respect.
• Puja: Also on a global stage, like DDLJ actually paved the way: the longest running movie and suddenly Raj had become a household name. Over the years, first we used to feel that these movies are only made for the diaspora, not for the Indian audience. Over the years we now feel that may be our movies are not good enough, we don't get Oscars, and sometimes we have to show a different Bollywood to the outside world. What do you make of that? We are constantly criticizing our own
• Shah Rukh Khan: I think because we start looking for reasons for storytelling. The reason to tell a story is I just want to tell a story. The reason to tell as story is not Rs 200 crores, the reason for telling a story is not to cross over. The reason to tell a story is not because I am going to win an award. You tell a story because you want to, it has to be very basic and simple. Grandmother tells you stories, your mother tells you, your father tells you stories. I tell my children stories. I don't tell them for any other reason but guys did you enjoy, did you have a good time. It's not like aaj mai usko yeh kahani sunaunga aur who bohot accha aadmi insane benega bada hokar. The story should be told just because its makes you happy and entertained, in a state of mind which was like hey, this was pleasant. So as long as we try to do all this we will fail. But on the other hand if our reasons are right like we want Indian stories to be loved by everyone because we have great stories to tell. I think we have great actors, great directors, great producers, great television and if we can just change it a bit, in terms of the way we express it, the expression should be the same but the way we put it across: if we can say it in a language that they are used to hearing for so many years, like we are used to hearing stories in Indian languages for so many years, three hours and an interval. You know how there might be fasting if you one day decided that Hindi movies will have no intervals. I think the whole country will go kya baat kar reheho yaar koi interval nahi hogi. Just imagine if today it was announced no intervals in Hindi films, haan ek hi role mai khatam ho jayegi kya baat kar reho yaar and exactly the same way when we go to the western world and tell them that hamare picture mai interval hain, they will be like what interval matlab kya hota hai, interval toh school mai hota hai. Interval is lunch break you don't want lunch break at 7:30pm in the evening. So we need to garb our films their way. We need to respect that. If we do that I think we will be making a huge impact in the world cinema.
• Puja: Do you think we need to do or should we just enjoy and actually run behind the Oscars?
• Shah Rukh Khan: No, I think when you genuinely feel like telling a story without intervals with songs without songs, but get a subject, which is relevant to that way of enacting. If I genuinely want to tell that story I think I should make it on an international scale. If I don't want to tell that story I should do it on the way and scale. It could be bigger and more expensive. But you know if you are planning to make an Avatar, or you are planning to make an Inception, you need to understand that we do not belong to that genre of lovers. Like you know super heroes are not loved here romantic films are. So if you decide to make a film like that I think that there are many filmmakers and great talent, which can make it for an international audience. Not even think of it as a cross over, think of it as the first Indian international film. First I think we should believe that there is nothing like a film that can go from here to there. The film that you make should take the whole world. So you have to believe. I mean like Mr Satyajit, I mean we are from a land from Mr Satyajit Ray and Sohrab Modi, Dilip Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, AR Rehman so you are from a land of some of the most renowned art performers, music, I just saw Mr Hariprasad Chaurasiaji here, I met Anish, there are such great talent and you know it's unfortunate sometimes that the world recognizes them before we do and that's the sad part, that's really the saddest part. That's the only thing that makes me sad about Indian talent is that they got recognized by someone else and we didn't give them their due.
• Puja: Lastly 2013 was your year so what is 2014 looking like?
• Shah Rukh Khan: I started working in films since 1991. From 1991 to 2013 so far so good, there has never been a year, which has not been my year. I mean if I do it anymore it will be like the Chinese calendar, they will name all years after me. So all the years might be called Raj and Rahul and so with that arrogance I would like to end this interview, because now that I am among NDTV's 25 Global Indian Living Legends and I have the right to claim that. Keeping all jokes apart, every year is a good one, the ones that don't go off into the 100 crore club, 200 crore club now, make me want to work harder. The ones that have gone into the 200 crore, I want to keep those up so I have to work harder. The great films that I have made which might be few or more, I get an award, I am like I want it next year. The year I don't get an award I say I will get it next year. So the bottom line of every year is that I need to work harder. To work harder you need to think better, be happier, you want to be healthier, you want to be a solider, you want to be tougher and you know what keeps me going on to be really honest, because I only work on films, I go to the studio, I wear my make-up and I do my stuff. I don't know if it will work or not, more often then not Allah has been kind that it's worked. What keeps me going on is awards like this, I go back, I just actually tweeted that I was in the august company of wonderfully talented people, I don't even think I fit there, but thank you so much for considering me within that company. But I am going to work harder and am going to work happier. In 2014 you will have a harder and a happier Shah Rukh Khan.