Thin-Slicing Success - SRK

Snippets from some of his interviews:

By making it big in the movies, Shahrukh Khan proved to everyone that a small-time TV serial actor can also have his say on the silver screen. Shahrukh Khan started his acting career with serials like 'Fauji' and 'Circus', and with his hard work and immense talent has become a super star. He is a man full of energy and passion; he is very dedicated and hard working and puts in life into any role given to him.

• What is acting to you?

Everything. Even if I were a corporate type, I'd be an actor. If I was a major in the army and was dying in a battlefield, my death would be as heroic as those death scenes in the movies. I was born only to act. You can take me out of the actor, but you can't take the actor out of me. Five years into our marriage, Gauri knew that I'd always be an actor. When I'm asleep at night for four hours, I miss the actor in me. When I'm taking a bath, you won't believe the acting I do.

• So why is the yuppie hero talking of going easy on his acting assignments?

When you're good at something, it's time to move on. You have to spearhead new movements. That's why man went on the moon. I want others to learn from my mistakes. I want to spend some time alone and reassemble my internal mechanism. I'm a little tired with the demands made on my life. I need to rediscover the child in me. The more I get in touch with people; I'm losing my ability to be a child. I want to become childish and silly again. To grow more, I need to stop growing.

• What's the reality about something as make-believe as acting?

An actor has no shelf life, stardom does. Years ago, when I was doing the TV serial Circus, the trapeze artists told me, "Ho gaya to kartab, gir gaya to haadsa." If you get it right you're king, if wrong you're dead. Similarly, in acting too, sometimes there's no time to struggle, no ifs, no time for recuperating. You have to all the time move on. Hopefully away from the sound of the applause, from the wah-wahs and the awards. It'll be time to dig into my magic bag once more.

You have to understand something about Shah Rukh. He loves his craft and loves life. He loves the jokes, the sets, and his fellow actors -the men who are gods to the audience. All he ever wanted to do was to be an actor. He likes to play, he likes to pretend, there's a certain Peter Pan element in his life. He loves taking control and letting people experience that world as he experiences it. He's like an athlete in the way he attacks work. It's always no-holds-barred. And he has boundless energy to go on for hours. He's attacked his roles with such incredible confidence that everyone's heads turned around. It's hardly surprising then that once he hit films starting with Deewaana, the list of adjectives grew: confident, cocky, quick, streetsmart, savvy, charismatic, outrageous, raw. Thus, he holds an enviable sort of popular sway simply on the basis of his potential, staying power and saleability.

• Shahid: Who has been your role model?
  

ShahRukh: I have never had a single role model in my life I have always absorbed the good things from various personalities that gives me a wonderful choice in life and does broaden my horizons a great deal. The love in my life came from my parents who were more like my friends than anything else I always had the freedom to do anything I wanted to their faith in me gave me confidence and abilities to achieve impossible. Hard work and dedication came from my Father, he taught me that if you want something in life you have to work for it and no one gives it to you on a plate .So hard work and focus breeds success at all levels. My mother taught me to love life to the maximum and be truthful and upfront and that has taught me so much and has been my savior all through my times

Shahid: People call you a tower of energy, how do you manage to stay so energetic and full of life?

ShahRukh: I think energy comes from being creative and I feel I am very creative hence that generates enormous energy - also inner happiness and satisfaction of achievement revitalizes your inner being and makes you full of life. Again you must utilize this energy otherwise you are being ungrateful to God who has given you an ability and talent to make this world a better place

• Shahid: ShahRukh you sound more like a philosopher than an Actor, Seeing you on the screen and meeting you off screen are two totally very different experiences Do you feel any different?
  

ShahRukh: Hahahahahhahahahahah(a laughter full of life ) I am no philosopher but what I speak is same as what is in my heart, I do think things over and create my own perspective but always have respect and room for other people's opinion

• Shahid: Being at the height of your industry how do you keep yourself so friendly and approachable?
  

Shahrukh: That's very easy I always remember that God has given me this success through my fans and I owe it to humanity to give them what I have and I keep my feet on the ground My father once said to me regardless what you are or what you may become one day you will always be a human being. And I never forget that Don't you think that says it all?