K-Jo Confidential

Feel free to look around the sets of My Name Is Khan in LA. And we chat with Karan, too. Minus the koffee...

By: Sarita Tanwar

Karan Johar, who is presently in Los Angeles, shooting for My Name Is Khan says, "My lead actor (Shah Rukh Khan) plays autistic in the film, and now I think, my phone is too!" I believe him. Two days earlier, I got a text message from him saying, "I hope you are dog." Three times. Had it been anyone else from the industry, I would recreate the Harbhajan Singh-Andrew Symonds type of controversy. After all, calling someone a kutta, is as bad as calling someone a monkey (or maa ki...) But with Karan, there had to be an explanation. He later clarified: The message was supposed to read — I hope you are dng (doing) good. An exasperated Karan complains, "My phone has started behaving strangely. It does the exact opposite of what I want. It types whatever it wants to type and it has been incessantly calling Aamir Khan's number. Much as I want to make cracks about a phone from an SRK set dialing Aamir, I resist. There are other things to talk about — from his last film, Dostana to the new under-production one. Read on for excerpts from a conversation.

Are you happy with how Dostana fared at the BO? Or were you expecting more?
I would say it has met with my expectations. I knew we were pushing the envelope, it was scary, out-of-the-box, edgy, and we had two mainstream actors kissing in the climax — even it was it was intuited — and it was a big risk. But it has done really well. It has been accepted well by the young urban audience.

So will we see ads and hoardings declaring collections etc, like most industrywallas?
I haven't done it, but I don't think there is anything wrong with it. I think it is a brand building exercise. Corporates need it to do it as they are answerable to their stock holders and production houses come out with the ads for their own reasons. And if you can afford to take out full page ads, and hoardings, then why not? I don't have a problem with it. What I think is wrong when people try to put out wrong inflated figures. Just to prove that their film is a hit.

These days a film releases on Friday, and there's a success party on Monday. Why haven't you had one for Dostana.
What's the point, darling? If I have a party to celebrate the success of Dostana, then only the lead cast of the film will turn up. When I have a party, I want the whole industry to show up, and that won't happen at the success party of any film. So, I won't have it. I don't want to have a party just to call the media and make a noise about my film. I am just happy whether it is infidelity or homosexuality, Dharma is breaking barriers in the kind of films we are making.

This is the first time you are shooting in LA, how is it different from New York?
In LA, Everything is by the book. We have a lot of foreign cast in the film, and we had to go through the screen actor's guild. There are rules, modulations, and it's very disciplined and very Hollywood. And very film-friendly.

You had to change venue during KANK, due to the crowds..
There is no crowd here. We are the only crowd. We are about an hour-and-a-half out of LA. People won't even know where it was shot. It could be any heartland of America. We needed this kind of location and it suits us perfectly.

How many hours do you shoot?
Twelve hours a day… the foreign crew may work single-shifts of eight hours but we desi girls and boys put in longer hours. Also we have to work fast because we lose light by 4.30. I am working with an entirely new crew this time. Barring SRK, Kajol and me, it's an all new team. I have new ADs, a DoP and production team. I have never worked with Ravi Chandran before.