La copertina del numero del 19 febbraio 2012 di Brunch è dedicata a Karan Johar. L'articolo di Poonam Saxena e Amrah Ashraf, contenuto nel settimanale, riporta alcune interessanti dichiarazioni rilasciate dal regista:
'Coffee, anyone?
There is no logical explanation as to how or why I decided to do Koffee With Karan. It was a childhood dream to be in front of the camera asking questions. I’m an inquisitive person, a curious cat. I always thought of myself as sitting on a leather sofa chatting with friends with a tongue-in-cheek irreverence, intruding in their lives - within boundaries. I was surprised by the success of the show. I didn’t realise how voyeuristic our nation is. Everyone liked peeping into a living room conversation. I was not nervous. I’d always done theatre, elocution, etc, in school. Performance is something I can do. Being a moderator at a conference, or talking in a TV studio - I’m comfortable with that. I like the attention to be on me. I’m a closet actor and I’m open to acting in a film. I’ve done three seasons of Koffee With Karan so far and it’s not a problem keeping the show fresh. In every season, there’s a new controversy, a new lover, a new affair. Friends have become foes and foes have become friends. There are new bitching issues, jealousy and envy issues. Everyone, including me, is in a line for a therapist! Everyone knows they’re on a ride when they come for the show. Being on the show is cool. You know you’re going to be watched. They all come ready to be clever. That’s why even people who sound brain dead in most interviews sound so sparkling on my show. Also, the level of intimacy they have with me makes them relax. And I bring up only those things in the public domain. Journalists can’t ask the way I can ask if they’re having an affair. And if they say, ‘No, I’m not,’ I can get away with saying, ‘Shut up, you’re lying!’ And even their denial is fun. The trick is to pad them with compliments. They’re all so puffed up that when the deflation comes, it’s not so bad. Also, there is a trust issue. They know I won’t project them in a bad light.
Couture king
I’d done costumes for films like Veer-Zaara, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and many others. This was another childhood dream. When I was 16, I was more interested in films and fashion than anything else. As a child I was fat. When I was 100 kg I was excited by nice clothes that could never fit me! I read magazines like GQ and Vogue. I used to watch Fashion TV. (...) I choreographed fashion shows in college. (...) So venturing into fashion was very natural. Varun Bahl and I struck a chord - our sensibility for men’s clothes was the same. We teamed up and had two couture openings which went off very well. Soon we’ll be opening up flagship stores in Delhi and Mumbai. I give this less time than Varun would like me to give, but what can I do?
Mentoring too
With Shakun Batra who has just made Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, we have now mentored nine young directors in Dharma Productions. Some came through destiny, some we sought out. Shakun, for example, is a close friend of Imran Khan. The two came to me with a ready script. All the others worked as assistants with Dharma. I want to launch all the people who worked with Dharma as full-fledged directors. I see my role of a mentor as part parenting and part monitoring. With the former, you take care of their fears and through the latter, you help them creatively. The role of a producer is to be a guide, supervisor and emotional support. You have to build up a film with good energy. Because I have no personal life, I have the bandwidth and time to do this. At Dharma, we are boutique in our way of operating. In that sense, we are not like some big studio. Our office is informal'.
