I am very strongly paternal. My paternal instincts need to be acted upon. My love needs a release. I love everyone. I don't express my love enough, but the love within me needs a platform as a parent.
— Karan Johar
I am constantly accused of being 'First World.' So what should I do? I can't apologise for my environment, upbringing, aesthetic.
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.
Everyone thinks I land in a chopper on top of my building and I have the most cushy existence. Could you understand that I might have the most messed up life myself?
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.
Honesty is wonderful, but I suspect it's also overrated.
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.
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 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!
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.
I feel Victoria may have a Secret, but you don't have to know it!
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.
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.
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.
Few people know that I love local dhaba food. It is the best!
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.
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.
For me, a child means an old-age insurance policy. I have a nurturing quality in me.
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.
Offence is no longer defence - it's a full-time profession. Everyone is so offended all the time. The new police force that we weren't told about: the moral police. No qualifications, no training, no understanding of actual morality, but they have a degree in the art of being offended.
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.
I know I don't mind sharing my defects, my deficiencies, partly in the hope that someone will hear it and know that they're not alone.
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'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.
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.
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.
I condemn any form of terrorism and especially the terrorism that would affect my country and me.
I've heard expressions like, 'Are you good in bed?' What does that even mean? For me, good in bed means sleeping seven hours. Undisturbed! If I get eight hours, that means I'm amazing!
In my experience, I think there's must ado about fidelity and infidelity. I think sometimes true emotional relationships can go beyond those.
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.
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 have always been interested in fashion and even contemplated being a fashion designer at one point of time.
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'm exceptionally email un-savvy, so to reply to my emails is like a torture. It's like literally, half of all my emails, I get my secretary to type out for me. And the personal ones, I avoid and just pick up the phone and call them.
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.
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.
I'm deeply stressed as a filmmaker, and I know I'm not alone. The censorship crisis, the moral policing, the politics of it has most of us on edge. I'm scared to use certain words: like, if I use 'Bombay,' will there be a problem?
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.
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 simply can't do one-word message replies: Yes. Ok. No. Sure. Cool. None of these are options for me. I must write something extra. Something personal. I put kisses and emoticons. Emoticons, by the way, are my very best friends. They have removed all the pressure of thinking up something personal to say.
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.
I am not a hound; I am an attention-seeker. Very different animal. My kind of attention requires greater finesse.
'Sairat' is a film I absolutely loved. I have great regard for the movie and its film-maker. The movie blew my mind.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not embarrassed about who I am. I'm not apologetic.
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.
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 father was 40 when he had me, so he was more a grandparent than a parent.
