Shah Rukh Khan was appalled at Karan Johar’s suggestions to wear tight jeans on the sets of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and called Aditya Chopra to know who is the person telling him to do ‘weird’ things. Karan, who has given his career’s biggest hits with Shah Rukh, recently narrated how he ended up being on a film set despite his mother Hiroo Johar’s resistance and how eventually he got along with Shah Rukh, who gave him the confidence to direct his first film, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.
Karan believes his becoming a film director was the doing of destiny as he was never “equipped to make a feature film.” He told Galatta Plus, “I hadn’t gone to a film school, though my father produced films. Geographically, I lived in a different part of the city and I was far removed from the nepo kids. I never hung around with them a lot, barring Zoya (Akhtar), Farhan (Akhtar), Abhishek Bachchan and Shweta Bachchan. It was thanks to Adi (Aditya Chopra) that I got sucked into being on a film set.”
Aditya Chopra convinced Karan that he was meant to be on a film set with all the ‘melodrama, sense of humour, dancing and singing’ he has in him. He hired him as an Assistant Director on Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and asked him to look for a costume for Shah Rukh Khan from the box, which contained costumes from YRF’s hit Sridevi film Chandni.
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“When I entered the set, I was like I am going to be a costume designer because if I tell people I want to make movies, they will laugh. Going into the Chandni ka peti (box) was like an orgasm to me because I couldn’t believe I was going to see Sridevi’s iconic sarees. Then I saw an unused red and white sweater, and Shah Rukh had to do that very famous wave at Kajol at the end of ‘Na Jaane Mere Dil Ko’. There was an emblem of Rishi Kapoor’s jacket with which I had to cover the tear (on the sweater). I thought I had done some genius thing,” shared Karan.
Before DDLJ, Karan had met Shah Rukh briefly when the actor was working on Duplicate with his father Yash Johar. So, the actor barely knew him when Karan met him on the set of DDLJ and suggested he wear tighter jeans.
“I told Shah Rukh, ‘You should wear tight jeans, your body shape would look better in tighter jeans.’ I was saying very strange things to him for an assistant because I was very new to this world. Then I told him, ‘You should show your Adam’s apple because girls think it is very attractive.’ He said, ‘Just call Adi in.’ When he came, Shah Rukh told him, ‘Who is this? Why is he telling me I should show my Adam’s apple and wear tight jeans? Where is he from?’ Adi told him, ‘He is a townie (a word for those who lived in South Bombay), he knows all these things, so just listen to him.’ So, Shah Rukh wore that costume and I thought I had found my calling,” Karan revealed.
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Later, Karan got another chance to impress Shah Rukh as he wrote the climax of DDLJ. He shared, “I helped write the climax scene of Dilwale where SRK says, ‘Bauji theek kehte hain…’ Adi used to have these competitions for some reason where he would tell Uday and me, ‘You write the scene, and we will see whose is the best’ I wrote the scene which was an adaptation of For Ceaser is an Honourable Man, it is a sarcastic speech. Shah Rukh got impressed with it and he asked me, ‘Tu Hindi likh sakta hai? (You can write Hindi?) Tu toh townie hai..’ I told him, ‘I can write Hindi but my spoken English is not that good’.”
He continued, “In this industry where people don’t give credit to anyone, Adi said that Karan wrote 80% of the scene and from that point, Shah Rukh started looking at me differently. From that point, Shah Rukh and I got along.”
Shah Rukh Khan with Karan Johar. (Photo: Karan Johar/Instagram)
During the shoot of DDLJ, SRK told KJo that he should direct his own film and he would act in it. Kajol, who was also around, also showed interest. But Karan felt they were saying it for the sake of it. Even when he told his father Yash Johar about it, he felt, “They are delirious,” and his mother felt, “They are mad”.
However, SRK called Yash Johar and told him that he would work on his another film after Duplicate, which would be directed by his son. “My father told me, ‘Ye pagal ho gaya hai, bol raha hai (He has gone mad, he is saying) he would work on a film that your son would direct. What do you know about direction?” Eventually, Shah Rukh heard the script of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and gave his dates to Karan for the shoot of the film in 1997.
Also read | Karan Johar slams his own film Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, admits he got the gender politics wrong: ‘Rahul said all kinds of wrong things’
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was released in 1998 and became a huge success. It revolves around a love triangle between Anjali (Kajol), Tina (Rani Mukerji), and Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan).
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