watch now! detail...
you're opening the door for me. hello anu! welcome to dharma productions 2.0 it really is. this is our new outing. listen, it really is 2.0. i love it! you know, i have to tell you karan, the first time
i came to dharma productions office dharma productions was a small office underneath the mahalakshmi flyover i came to interview your father and i was one of his many admirers so i almost get emotional seeing how far you've brought the company. yeah... that's why you know, it was strange but
it was a big decision about the photographs that we wanted to put here because i wanted him to be at the entrance rightfully but this is the moment i just felt it was candid it was just like... also my father has a, if you se very closely, his smile used to reach his eyes.
he was a good man and he had this visage of goodness good man good man with good intentions, good heart, open heart. i feel happy proud is not something i feel. i feel grateful, never proud but i think from where you were
which is where kuch kuch hota hai was made out of the office under the mahalakshmi bridge race course office. so it got completely drowned under oh in july! yeah in july, the bad delusion. all my parents' wedding photographs kuch kuch hota hai's entire archive of images all gone?
beta, making... all gone. i have no memory it all went. so an office has a lot of memories but we don't have any physical memory, unfortunately. we then moved to an office which you've been to upper side in bandra but this, karan, is shock and awe!
i mean, this is massive. yeah well, we're trying to, kind of underplay it, but yeah it's massive. to be exact it's 27000 sq. feet. are you serious? we have a cabin for everybody that you can think of. which is what i love, like every director has a home here. but you know what i love
in this 27000 sq. feet is this wall. yes. i love that you have an an entire wall with photographs of the directors who have made films for dharma. i mean, it's such a generous acknowledgement of their work. it is, i mean, totally they're the reason why we stand tall or stand at all.
all of them have made films for us. some have run, some have not. some have done well commercially, some may not. but they are, right now, the pride of this company. and i believe that nurturing this talent has really made us who we are. my dad, i just feel so terrible, never saw any of this. like, he never saw these kids
just spread their love in this office and make the movies they did. i mean, i love it. i feel like a parent. and i see all of them i feel like this is my... that side is papa and this is all the kids these are all the kids you had. yeah, and they behave like really spoiled children at times as well, i have to say. but they still deserve this image on the wall.
okay, show me more. you have a dance wall, a music wall? what is that? okay, i'll show you. the song wall. i'll take you inside. okay, and this is our wall of dance. we normally have a wall of fame in offices this is our...
should i be cheesy and say this is our item song wall. you know karan, the songs from your movies have added so much joy to my life. these are some of the songs that are actually the reason you remember some of the films. yeah, right. the first recall is always music, right? it is. and that's the way it is.
which is your favourite song? right now, chull. chull. right now, you know... somehow i just don't see you dancing to chull or hearing chull, anu. that imagery... i read your tweet and i was like
i'm a chull woman. i'm trying to imagine it's maybe the kids in the zone or it's just you. it is me. what do you do? do you just bob your head to it? seriously! are you, like, rapping baadshah style. okay, so before i take you to my cabin,
this is apoorva's who's the ceo of our company. and if you pan on the wall you have powerful men in powerful positions in big chairs. as we rightfully call it from the wall of dance to the wall of authority. this is where it's serious. this is where things get serious.
i feel accountable to this room. a lot than i do to my mother at times. though she won't be happy to hear that. alright, so before that there's some fun before we go to work and chat about. we have a recreation room. recreation room?
this is where hard working people do, like in between we play table tennis what fun! and also like, some fun stuff like makings of and photo sessions so that all happens here? yeah. nice! that all happens in this room.
table tennis seems to be the new therapeutic form in dharma to kind of, like, unnerve. it's also the game, the only game, i can play. okay now slowly, moving taylor swift-ly towards the cabin. so this is the wall of emotion. aww how lovely! this is mom and dad.
this is mom on her 73rd birthday. i surprise visited her in her ladies lunch time. so this is right outside the door. enter, from the wall of emotion to the to my room. enter and i want to show you my favourite part of this room apart from everything else, the paraphernalia is my chair. oh my god!
yeah, you must see my chair. it's the only high camp thing in this entire office and i think one element was required. so i want you to sit on this chair. i get to sit on that. you might get a bit lost, it's a big chair. and you're tiny. but i still want you to sit on that chair.
it's fab, thank you. right here, people wonder why the poster of iron lady is up here. but it is autographed to me by by the one artist in this world that i absolutely love it's meryl streep. and it says, 'for karan johar with very best' in?
' with very best wishes.' 'wishes, wishes.' so it was my 40th birthday gift that that ca aided for me. because they knew i'm crazy about her. she's the only person that i'd get weak-kneed in front of i don't want to meet anyone else in this world. if i had dinner with meryl streep, and i repeat dinner, not a handshake, not a hug.
dinner. one on one. that's the only item left on my bucket list. there's nothing else that i need to do. i can die and go to whichever part of the universe after that. i want to have dinner with meryl streep. so very proudly, plonked there. and i'll tell you which is unusual for a director if you follow me with your camera i will show you.
this is where hair and makeup happens. for the director? yes! why should only the actors look pretty? absolutely! so this is hair and make-up. this is where it all happens. i get ready. wardrobe, hair and make-up. fab!
this is where i get ready when i have to go to various events and interviews, such as these. okay so this is us. that's you and my big chair and me getting completely comfortable and happy. to be in my environment. hello and welcome to dharma 2.0 all over again, anu. i'm feeling really royal in this. are you?
in my chair with feathers! okay tell me about this picture. that's shah rukh and gouri. how can i not have them? and i wanted a good looking one of them. so this is the campaign they shot for and i was like, i need this image in my room. like, you know, for mom and me it's like, adi and yash uncle and there were shah rukh, gouri and the kids.
these are like family to me. it is what it is. i don't have any other kind of relatives that i want to put up on walls. i have my directors, i have my parents and i have these guys. tell me, when you see a script how do you know that this should be done by some other director. or do those directors bring their own scripts to you.
yeah that's what they do. when i green-light a script it's always the director who has kind of, brought a narrative or a screenplay, or a thought, or a synopsis to me, and then things just fall into place. it's your instinct. that's all i have. i have my instinct. i have nothing else. lets say there's just a script
with no director attached you know there are things that you can't do? actually that has very rarely happened, anu. i doesn't happen. and yet i want it to happen. i very rarely get a screenplay which i didn't source a director for. that i haven't done. it's always a director attached to the material. but i recently started, like, reading scripts
that'll be outsourced. we have project development team. which is the next wing of our office. three guys who, kind of, read and source scripts and then, you know, we find and attach directors. but right now all the content we made has been built organically by the filmmaker himself/herself. you described yourself as, you said, i'm a mid-level guy
who's trying for genius. yeah so are you acutely aware of your own shortcomings as a director the things you can't do? yeah totally! i have always been aware of that. there's so much i can't do. there's so much of i do, no one else does.
it's like, i am very clear about the kind of stories that i would want to tell. like human dramas mainly i think, and the complexities of relationships of the people, i understand not of people who have different demographics that perhaps i don't. i saw piku, for instance like i knew that story, i connected to.
because my father also had stomach issues. so i related to it emotionally. but the syntax that shoojit and juhi got in terms of writing and directing the film i perhaps don't have it. or the magnum-opus action film like a dhoom series i don't know maybe i'm not cut out for action and and car chases and that kind of stuff.
maybe i'm just not good for that. but there are films, like when i saw dhoni that day, i was like how interesting would it be to tell a biopic like that's what i want to do. but then i see other movies and i am like i'm like i can't do that. like i can't do what raju hirani does. when i see sanjay bhansali's aesthetic it always leaves me amazed.
baffled at times, amazed! jaw-droppingly amazing! like i know, we all do what we do. we'll be different from each other in different ways but there will be a certain impression that you have as a filmmaker that is very 'you'. and no matter what you do you leave it behind.
okay karan, i think i'm gonna take you over some tropes in your films that you keep revisiting. so i want you to tell me why you love these things so much. or what they mean to you. the benches. oh! i don't know! i have no idea! this obsession for benches.
you know it's very strange a couple of years ago when i was in therapy, and when you go back to your childhood. and it came up in the conversation with my therapist about my obsession about sitting on my own. as a child i used to do that a lot. like when kids were playing, i would, like, not want to play with them. because i was an only child
and for some reason i got used to being on my own and liked it. and i was also full of complexes like my weight and other stuff. so i would sit alone and like that. so always in school there was a playground and there was this bench. you know, i remember it very clearly, it was a red bench. and i used to sit on it.
the reason that i liked to sit on my own and the bench is a part of my... now i'm analyzing it over too much she explained and then i told her, "you know i have a bench as a motif in almost every film of mine. and she says, 'you know, you like benches.' it equals isolation for you and you used to enjoy that as a child
that was your comfort place. is to sit away. see i am over-analyzing it and trying to be cerebral about it. maybe i just like benches. i don't know or maybe it's just a frame with a good looking location. but i've tried to give you some reason. not to mention pretty people. but the reason i said this to you
is because it came up. in my discussion of therapy which is why, i am saying that who knows! so the next one is bridges. they're just good looking locations. i don't know now that you bring it up, i'm like yeah perhaps my eye gets drawn to these things. i think scale
it's what gives you scale. but it's not conscious. no. i don't think so. remember there used to be that one tree in ooty where everybody would dance? yeah! i don't know. i just think bridges are like beautiful and large and frame really well on the camera.
it's not in 'ae dil' though. there's no bench in 'ae dil' either. 'ae dil' has no bench and no bench? and no bridge. oh! you've got to update yourself. i can't be plonking them and there's a reason why he sings those songs.
he's a singer. you know. not just singing. he's just not singing. he is a proper singer. there's a reason. this time there's logic, guess what. can you imagine? get all the beauty and a little bit of brain. doesn't hurt?
no... okay! next is the clothes! i remember meeting yash ji around the time of k3g and he was just shaking his head and saying he wants the real jamawar shawls. i cant help it. it's my league.
so you just love clothes? love it... love it. all the things i couldn't wear as a kid all the things i lived vicariously through. i love good looking... clothes are my thing! i'm a big online shopper even now i buy things i don't fit into and i buy things i don't need.
i buy the same thing again and again sometimes. i'm crazy. that's my big indulgence. i don't do drugs. i don't smoke and drink. i just shop. i can't help it. it's a vice. okay! and the last one is sports.
who would imagine? who would've imagined! i mean, all the people in your films are so athletic. so sporty! yeah! because i'm not. see i don't have the frame to wear those good looking clothes, i don't have the body to run. you dress well karan. yeah well i cover it all up.
these are all childhood aspirations. i so want to have that amazing body and play football. and completely be messy and sweaty and score that goal and give that whole fist bump to a teammate. it ain't happening! but you can live it, right?
in student of the year, all my pent-up anger came out. there was a triathlon for crying out loud. they were cycling, they were swimming and they were running! i mean, it was testosteron on another level! like you kind of, have to live vicariously through your cinema. be it the clothes that your characters wear or the sporty activities they indulge in, all the things you don't do, they do.
karan tell me, i read that yash ji left you a letter. yeah! in which he said that these are the finances these are the people you should trust these ae the people you shouldn't trust, what was the most important piece of advice in that letter? actually it was technical
the letter was very technical. there was no advice? it was not an emotional letter. but didn't it end with saying to you that i love you more than you know. yes, that he said. that was the end. he said, "i love you i know that you will take it forward and i love you more than you have ever known.
that was the only emotional line in the end. the rest of it was academic and book and information, details. people you can trust, people you can't trust. these are eople you should let go of. and these are people you should keep. these aren't people you should continue with, these are the details, accounts
people owe me this, don't ask for it till they come to you. and there were people who came back like 'your dad had lent this to me but their names were not on that list. so i said you know he gave it to you in other kind of faith and i can't take it back. so that letter was my mandate for the
first 2 or 3 years of our existence and dharma productions without him and i was really on slippery surfaces most of the time. like i didn't know where i was going. there were feelngs that i would, like, merge dharma with somebody else. collaborate. just will not be able to do it on my own i was going through a gamut of those thoughts and emotions
in the middle of that when this letter came i was like, okay i have to follow this and i have to do it. the one thing that the letter did for me is make my mind up about definitely taking the company forward without any compromise. without selling up. it was amazingly clear that he has taken time to write that letter.
and there were 5 letters that were signed. just signed 4-5 empty pages with his signature on it. for anything that we needed. and it was all part of one docket he had given to me. that's amazing. you know karan, what intrigues me is that largely you make very, sort of, uncontroversial films about love and longing.
and somehow they end up in these raging controversies. you've been through it with wake up sid with my name is khan, now with ae dil hai mushkil. how do these experiences shape you as a director and as a person? what does it do? as per my father's legacy
and that's what he always said to me, "listen when you are in the right, nothing can stop you. no force can really come in your way." so that's what i believe. i believe in being strong rising above a situation. and being strong for you and your company is is very important.
i believe that very strongly. well i know it is time. but pre-release is always a time of high pressure yes 'ae film hai mushkil!' yes... 'ae film hai mushkil! so we'll bring chritmas in a little early with a gift. oh! thank you! i get a gift? it's my hamper without a rapid fire. indeed!
oh thank you! you didn't have to answer any difficult questions. i know! this was easy. this was fun what is this? it's a laptop. it's a surface pro. oh fantastic! i love getting presents. it's a surface pro i love it. and this looks really sleek.
thank you, anu! i'm happy. thank you! so karan, shakespeare in love is one of my favorite films. and i have a little cue card to read out these dialogs so there's a conversation between philip henslowe who owns the theatre and fennyman who is actually the financer. so henslowe says to him, mr fennyman, "allow me to explain about the theatre business. the natural condition is one of
insurmountable obsacles on the road to imminent disaster." so fennyman says, "so what do we do?" and henslowe says "nothing! strangely enough, it all turns out to be well." and fennyman says, "how?" and he says "i don't know. it's a mystery." it's true.
it is true... do you believe that? it is true, it's exactly that. i think this kind of, sums up our existence in the movies. because it's true. i say where else can you sing, dance, laugh and cry and still be at work? only here! and all that you are doing karan
makes a lot of us really happy. so keep doing it. thank you. thank you so much. i will, i will! and thank you for making my new office famous.
