In a freewheeling chat, SRK lays bare his thoughts on how the business of film will be in times of Netflix.
"It's a male-dominated industry. You can't shirk it away or ignore it. I would love it to be different. There should be no disparity. A male actor and a female actor should get the same fees", says Shah Rukh Khan.
The world will change. There are many films that do not find a place in the theatre — not because they are not good enough. The quality of life is dependent on being able to do what one wants to, as and when one wishes to. It's not about a big house or a big car or a big club that you are a member of. Film-watching should be as and when and how one wishes to. I can't exclaim, 'Arre phone pe meri picture dekh rahe ho (You are watching my movie on the phone)!' If you like it that way, fair enough. If you like it bigger, put it on your television. If you like it even bigger, go to the theatre.
Netflix and all other platforms are here to stay. It gives an opportunity to a lot of youngsters who didn't know where to take their small films. So my deal with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and chief content officer Ted Sarandos is not just on paper. I'll try and make stuff for you for which I can't find a theatre and I am non-self-obsessed to know that certain films don't need to be in the theatre. Theatres will also change. It will perhaps be more like Broadway where movies will play for six months. It will be a 360-degree experience, there will be 3D and holographic stuff and more interaction. It will be community viewing, like watching a game, like going to a theme park.
They have to look at me; I can't look at them. I look at the moon every day but I don't reach for it. It started with Om Puriji and now Priyanka, Irrfan and so many others are doing it. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is getting some films. Amitji (Amitabh Bachchan) has done some, Anupam Kher too has and it's wonderful. But I have never been offered an opportunity. I don't even know if I am good enough to do it — I think my English is a little weak (smiles).
China is a big market not just for Indian movies, but for the world right now. Most of the Hollywood films that perhaps don't do well in their domestic box office wait for the China release and some of them are saved by that. It's wonderful what China has done in the last 8-10 years. If you have a market, you have to somehow create a platform for people. China has done it and it's a model that India should look at in terms of theatres.
I'm lonely enough as an actor. The director's job is the loneliest in filmmaking as they are the only ones who know what their film is speaking. So perhaps I'm not ready for that kind of loneliness as yet. If I am to direct, then I have to write as well, which will take me a couple of years. I've been trying to write a book for the last 20 years and I haven't finished that. I'm a little lazy and it will be difficult to really (be a director), but in small ways, I do participate in designing the action. I don't know how to say 'okay' to something. I always feel it can be better — I have trouble letting go. A director's job of just saying okay and moving on stresses me; how does this person know it's okay? I will keep on doing things and until I get to understand that it is okay to say okay, I'll not be a director.
These are good companies, run by big people with bigger dreams. When I had my first conversations with them, I asked: do you really want to invest so much money in me? I spent a day dissuading them. I've been made to understand that they did not just come for the stardom. When I met Byju's, they said there is a certain level of education that I bring to the table. For Big Basket, my team tells me that the housewives think I am trustworthy. That's very nice. Working on a new film, especially an innovative film like Fan, is like venturing on a startup. It is the riskiest of businesses. I'd rather try something new and fail. I haven't invested in a startup directly.
When they came in the beginning, I was shooting with the late Srideviji. Though it was an international brand, one hadn't heard of them. The whole team had flown down from South Korea but we didn't even know how to pronounce Hyundai correctly. I come from an era of Fiats and Ambassadors. The concept of making a car for India from Korea seemed far-fetched. But there was this team who believed in bringing affordable cars to India, so I went for a ride, not knowing the enormity of what it can achieve for customers. Twenty years later, I am amazed at how it all began. Now it is one of the leading carmakers for India.
My investments are in 3Cs: children, cinema and cricket — actually, sports, more than just cricket. These genuinely appeal to me. I love children, not just my own. I like doing things with kids and now, at 53 years, even a 20-year-old is a kid for me. I wanted to be a sportsman but I couldn't. I like kids to have that opportunity, I like platforms where kids can do what I couldn't. I was recently shooting in Orlando for about 50 days for my film. My son AbRam had come along and every day we were at Disney, at the water park. But I don't do roller-coasters — I'm scared of them.
Any investment done with the mind will be good in the short term, but if your work has to touch people's life or make it more convenient, then you have to really care and it has to come from the heart. So I never dissuade people from getting into ventures and businesses. The whole concept of business management stems from the fact that if you organise it, you will succeed. But I'm completely disorganised and I have succeeded, too. So there must be something true about the fact that the heart works in businesses as well.
I understand what you are saying "there is no way to protect them from who I am. I'm a good monster and only I can protect my children from who I am. By keeping a certain amount of dignity in the face of opinions, by keeping a certain amount of calm in the face of disarray, by keeping a certain amount of honesty and hard work in the face of nepotism. People's perception of stardom could be, for example, "Star ka baccha hai, gaadi tez chalata hoga (He's a star kid, his driving must be really rash)." The great happiness that I give them as a father, the love and education and teachings that I give them, and the fact that I work so hard as a father - it's their responsibility now to live with it and figure it out.