Few people know that I love local dhaba food. It is the best!
Karan Johar
I want to walk the red carpet at the Oscars. I am in awe of the ceremony, and winning an Oscar would be the most magical moment of my life. I want to make that speech and hold that trophy and say, 'This is for you, India.' That's the line I have rehearsed for God knows how long. But that has to be for a Hindi language film.
I am a Gemini and can adapt to most atmospheres. You get two for the price of one when you are a Gemini.
I have always been interested in fashion and even contemplated being a fashion designer at one point of time.
If I did have a six-pack to show and a great waistline to put out there to the universe or beautiful muscular legs, then I would not have to pout. The only thing I have going for me is a jawline.
Throughout my life, I have valued relationships far more than the professionalism.
I'm a proud filmmaker, but everyone seems to have forgotten that. You're introduced, and someone will say, 'Arrey! Karan Johar! He does talk shows! He's judge!' And now my filmmaking has been lost, all my other accomplishments forgotten.
Honesty is wonderful, but I suspect it's also overrated.
I grew up as the only child, and we did not have a large family. So for me and my mother, our friends tend to become our family.
Sometimes you just wonder whether people just don't have the sensitivity or decency. I'm a member of the media myself: I host a talk show. I know sometimes when you want to ask something, you can circumvent it with words and vocabulary. You don't suddenly just go out there and ask something directly in the pretense of being absolutely candid.
Because I was the only child, I was completely indulged. My father thought I was the best looking boy. And even though I was at 100 kgs., he dismissed it as puppy fat. He thought that the sun came out of my head. If I got five out of ten marks, he thought I was half there and had only half way more to go.
I have invariably been in love when I haven't had the same reciprocated emotion at all. I don't choose to talk about my personal life because I believe that I don't want to, and I believe my personal life is personal.
I am constantly accused of being 'First World.' So what should I do? I can't apologise for my environment, upbringing, aesthetic.
No one wanted to be my friend because of my lunchbox - because I never shared my lunchbox. One day the principal walked in and said, 'No one is friends with Karan Johar; who will be his friend?' My CEO today put his hand up there and said, he will.
Infidelity has always existed, but I feel like it was brushed under the carpet, behind the scenes. Now everyone is at it - and they've stopped pretending they're not.
I love that first-time feeling that I can't build in myself anymore, where I can learn and emulate other filmmakers. Be it Ayan Mukherjee, Punit Mahotra, Karan Malhotra, Tarun Mansukhani or Shakun Batra, all of them have taught me something or the other.
I find myself asking questions that as a filmmaker I never thought I would ask. Like I get a call from a magazine for a feature and my first question is, 'Cover or not?' Interview invite from a leading channel? I have stopped asking the topic. I'm just like 'Primetime or not?' If I am invited and put in the second row, I can be distraught for days!
I remember breaking the news to both my parents that I wanted to be a director, and they both looked very doubtful. They didn't know what a closet Hindi film buff I was. I used to dance to old Hindi films songs on the sly, so my decision to be a part of Hindi cinema was shocking even for my parents.
My very shy Punjabi father never taught me about the birds and bees. So shy was he that he may have thought he would get arrested for even talking about it.
I saw 'Brokeback Mountain' in a packed house in Chelsea, New York, when I was filming a Bollywood film there. Chelsea, being a predominately gay neighbourhood, had the most euphoric reaction. I saw couples holding hands and crying at the end. It was the most heartening viewing I have ever been to.
I find that I don't lie about the big things in life. The things that matter. And about me. While I'm talking about myself, I rarely lie: I know who I am, my level of talent, that I'm not the most versatile filmmaker, the person I am. I don't lie about myself because I don't lie to myself.
I'm not a walking fleet of vanity vans any more than I'm a walking, talking multi-star cast. I might want an entourage, but so far, it is entirely eluding me.
For me, my country comes first. Nothing else matters but my country. I always felt that the best way to express your patriotism is to spread love, and that's all I ever tried to do through my work and my cinema.
I, of course, was born as if I was a movie star in my head. Even though I had nothing, in my head I was always royalty. My mother always said, 'I don't know where you came from'. I didn't have their value system. And I always lived beyond my means.
Give me the flash lights, the red carpets, and all that goes with it. Please! Oh, and I love hoardings. I love them. Nothing makes me happier than my face splashed all over the city.
My college friends call me Karu, which is the worst. Only in our country can we make a short form for a short name. But otherwise, I've never had a pet name all my life. But now, in official meetings, someone will call me KJo. And I'll judge that person in my head. Just call me Karan.
I have never, ever talked about my orientation or sexuality because whether I am heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, it is my concern. I refuse to talk about it... I have not been brought up to talk about my sex life.
I met Hugh Jackman, and I was like, 'I love your movies!' And, of course, he asked, 'Which one?' A reasonable question, but I blanked completely. In that moment, I couldn't remember a single film that Hugh Jackman had done. So I copped out. 'The recent one!' And that was one of his biggest disasters. Well done, me.
There are ups and downs in so many relationships, but with Shah Rukh, there is deep love. There's no other way of communicating the respect and love I have for him. And I believe that ours will be a dynamic, and relationship and connect that will be forever.
My primary passion is film-making. That's the aspect of my life that defines me, completes me, and completely grounds me. Everything else - from judging a reality TV show to hosting a talk show - is just a result of me being a film-maker. I am the happiest, satisfied and at peace when I am behind the camera.
For me, a child means an old-age insurance policy. I have a nurturing quality in me.
I was one of the first early Twitter users from the film fraternity. And back then in 2009, I thought I was going to enter a world where people liked me, knew me, knew my work - it was going to be fine! All about the love, not the hate. And it was. At first.
The first time I fell in love, I was in my 20s, and I loved someone right till I was 31. And then I felt that emotion died within me. I wasn't feeling alive at all.
My mother was keen that I complete my graduation and never ever wanted me to be in the movies, as my father had made five films that lost money. One of the films he made was 'Agneepath,' which was hugely hyped but underwhelming at the box office, and I remember that my dad had to sell my grandmother's flat to pay off the loan.
I'm sad, upset, and disheartened with the trolling that happens on social media... At the end of the day, this whole homophobia is so disheartening and upsetting. And then they say, 'Why don't you speak about your sexuality? You could be iconic in this country.' But I don't want to be iconic anywhere. I want to live my life.
I do not understand why we are not raised to celebrate our bodies as children. Why we are told to be shy or awkward or self-conscious.
I've been the lull, and I've been the storm and also somewhere in between. But that's OK. I love the limelight after all.
Tell me, who doesn't want to have a family to extend himself/herself?
In my experience, I think there's must ado about fidelity and infidelity. I think sometimes true emotional relationships can go beyond those.
I was swept by the narrative structure of film... you can create a world, you can destroy it, you can do what you want with it and serve it to people just the way you like.
My instinct about a human being is paramount. For me, when a director has walked into my room or an assistant that I have hired, who has later gone on to become a director, is purely based on human instinct, be it Ayan Mukerji, Karan Malhotra, Punit Malhotra or Tarun Mansukhani. I am very susceptible to human energy and energy of spaces.
Everybody knows what my sexual orientation is. I don't need to scream it out. I won't, only because I live in a country where I could possibly be jailed for saying this.
I think that I have self esteem issues, really. If you really analyse it... People who really like me I have no interest in. The unattainable is always that I want to attain.
Two powerful people can't be friends.
From the time you open the newspapers to the time the lights go off at night, it's all lies. We lie the most to the people closest to us. For fear of hurting them, breaking their heart, or worrying them.
I am a product of Indian cinema; I've grown up watching Indian films ever since I can remember. And song and dance is part of our lives; it's part of our culture; we wake up to songs, we sleep to lullabies, you know, we celebrate every religious and traditional function with music.
I don't claim to have led a saintly life. There have been a lot of one-sided love stories in my life.
I don't know about happy endings, because I don't think, eventually, anything is happy. You feel a bout of happiness with good news. Five minutes later, there could be a traffic jam or a phone call from an irritating relative or a weird thought, or it could be a tweet that annoys you, and your emotion will flip immediately.
Whether or not we communicate it, I definitely seek my mom's acceptance and approval for everything. She has a strong commercial sense of movies and is a quintessential audience. When she doesn't like something, I know there is reason to worry. When she loves something, there is reason to celebrate.
When I'm making a film, I'm obsessive about what I do, and I get totally into it. That's all I'm eating, breathing, living at that moment.
