“I respect myself. I don’t like invasive questions, I’ve nothing to defend or to prove. At the end of the day, I’m a performer. What I have, I deserve; what I don’t have, I don’t want.”
“Sometimes I wonder – why do I do this? I don’t need to do it anymore. It takes a lot of will power to get up every morning and drive to the studios, sing to my heroines, break my back... 13 years and 38-odd films, and I’m still here. But then, when people say, don’t you want to relax, watch the sunrise, I say no, I don’t want to watch the sunrise, I want to act. For me, it’s not the end result, it’s the process...”
“My core universe is my family and my work. My work is out there for everyone to see, my family is mine alone. I guard it jealously. My children need me, and I need them. But there is another Shah Rukh on display always, whom the audience loves. I am humbled by that love, they love me for what I do on 70 mm. They love me because I hold up a mirror to them.”
On his children:
“In fact, my world is expanding. The only difference is that I’m looking inward now, looking for meaning within. When I see Aryan and Suhana, I see purity and spontaneity. Untouched by commerce, untainted by envy... even as an actor, I grow simply by watching them. The truth is that I don’t want to be this famous but absentee father. I want my children to flower under my care. My father was there for me till I was 15, and he was father and mother to us. We depended on him and he taught me everything I know. He always wanted me to go out there and experience life; there were no boundaries I had to keep within, no pressures. The only way I can be a better father is by being there longer for my kids...”
On Karan Johar:
“He is the best screenplay and dialogue writer in the country today. Actually, Karan adds value to any project that he is associated with. In the years to come, he will be remembered for inventing his own genre of Hindi films. And I think it was very nice of him to write a film like KHNH and give it to Nikhil to direct. If I had written it, I’d be reluctant to part with it. Of course, Nikhil is very good...”
"Even in my films, it is said that it will get a good opening because I am there. If I consider the same yardstick, a star of my calibre should have brought enough audiences before the television set. If there is no opening and lack of appeal for the show despite my presence, then I think I am responsible."
"Grown-ups forget that it is okay not to know everything. They don't realise the beauty of saying I don't know some things."
"May be next time I may not be signed for a television show and might be paid a much lower fee."
"It’s not that I am too much on TV, it’s just that there’s lot of TV happening these days. Cinema is no more the only form of entertainment. We are talking about watching films on mobile phones. Five years from now, I may be doing a movie that may be released on cellphones. Does that mean I become smaller or has the reach increased."
"For success you need to know that you can go wrong and yet go ahead and do it. People who do wrong things, like stealing or murder, have overcome the thought that this is wrong. They have found their justification. Positively, if we apply the same, it will work. As soon as you accept that this can go wrong, the fear of failure decreases. If tomorrow I face failure, I hope I can say I enjoyed failure too."
"Giving all the credit to luck takes away from the hard work involved. People will say I got a good show and it’s our luck that the show’s doing well. But there’s a lot of hard work involved here. I am not successful by luck, but because I am in the right place. I am not special. Eight years ago I thought I was, but after that, I think there is a set of audience that likes my work."
"TV work is very difficult. Especially quiz shows. It’s almost live. Also, there are many factors like unknown contestants, dealing with kids, the 200 lights and after all that, there’s a deadline to adhere to. I can work for 20 hours. I can dance, fight, do press conferences and not get tired, but with this I get tired. Also a show like Kya Aap... needs something from the host. There is a certain responsibility and I never shirk away from responsibilities. But yes, it is tiring and I get a headache at the end of the day. But the problem is when I return home, my kids want me to ask them the same questions again. So I have to sit down and do that."
"Honestly, even I don’t know myself. You keep acting the whole day. You do lot of things that are larger than life. Lines start getting blurred after a point. The closest I came to playing myself was in KBC and now this show. On the show I emote the way I would in real life."
"There was a time we used to respect the critics, but nowadays there are more of them with less knowledge. Both their criticism and appreciation should not be taken seriously. You can take the recent examples of Fanaa and Krrish . Both films were panned. But look at the kind of business they have done.
The problem with critics today is that they feel compelled and are in a race to rip a film apart. I go by the audience viewpoint. A lot of people, especially women, did not like me in KANK and I accept and take the blame fully for it because I did not act well in the film".
"When I have been taken advantage of, I've never taken action against them, I'm amused. It doesn't make a difference. Like I said, I don't think about it after having done it even if I get to know. To me if somebody at that stage fools me, I find it amusing and I enjoy it. There's a bit of 'rascallyness' that I like."
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