Shah Rukh Khan's mantra for handling despair: 'I cry in the bathroom then move on'

NEW DELHI: Superstar Shah Rukh Khan on Tuesday said his way of dealing with moments of despair in life is to shut himself up in his bathroom and cry before getting on with the next thing.

Speaking at 'From Bollywood Superstardom to Business Success – Key Learnings On and Off Screen' session during the Global Freight Summit in Dubai, the actor-producer touched upon the failure of his movies before the COVID-19 pandemic, his philosophy on success and stardom, his childhood and how his goal is now to capture the young audience.

Shah Rukh admitted that he is self-critical but does not show the moments of weakness to anyone.

"I cry a lot in my bathroom. You can wallow in self-pity for just about that much time and then you have to believe that the world is not against you. Your film did not go wrong because of you or because the world is conspiring to destroy your work.You have to believe that you made it badly and then you have to move on," he said.

One cannot blame life for failure, the actor said, adding that he tries to "recalibrate and come back".

Shah Rukh said he believes that success somehow leads to failure because of the isolation of ideas.

"You are so driven by success and that was my problem. I am very driven, I don't take things for granted, I was getting up in the morning and saying to myself, 'I need to keep doing this'... Success can isolate you and lead to failure. While you are successful, you need to be aware that the world is changing around you. You need to look around, you can't be with blinkers on."

The 59-year-old actor, who made a successful comeback in 2023 with three hits in "Pathaan", "Jawan" and "Dunki", said if an artist is able to touch basic emotions, then their brand travels everywhere but it should also reflect the times.

"If you live in a time of strife, your product needs to give you a feeling of safety. You feel that you are anti-establishment, want to change things, then my movie needs to show me as a hero who takes on the world...

"My success came in the '90s when there was this opening up of my country India. We were going around the world and talking about India. The kind of cinema I did, 'tujhe dekha to ye jaana sanam' (referring to his 1995 hit 'Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge'), everybody liked it and some of them even got married watching this film 30 years ago. It had moments of happiness, love and Switzerland. It was the sign of times."

Asked about the advice he would give to his younger self, Shah Rukh thought about it for a moment and then said, "Maybe a better hairstyle and better fitting suits".

The actor said now that he has 35 years of experience in movies, he realises that many of the decisions that he took as a 25-year-old, he would not make them now if he looks back at them through the lens of experience.

"And maybe I wouldn't have reached where I reached. I would still want my younger self -- sorry this is politically incorrect -- I would want him to be brash, overconfident, bordering on arrogance, being extremely stupid and silly but being extremely gutsy also."

The actor, who has three children -- Aryan, Suhana and AbRam -- with wife Gauri, said his core competence is that he can "act a bit" and while that never changes, he keeps experimenting with his craft, technique and art within it.

"Now my focus is that my youngest kid should also think that I am a big enough star. He has not seen too many of my films. He is 11 years old. One day my elder kid came and said, 'You know, he knows you are a big star'. I want my son to experience stardom, knowing that I am a star is not good enough. If I can capture him as an audience then I am capturing the younger generation," he said.

Shah Rukh joked that whenever someone questions his stardom, he just needs to walk across to his house, stand on a railing and wave to the people.

"And I am very arrogant about it... Jokes apart, I am very humble and I bow to all of you for making this possible. I don't say this with humility but I say this with gratefulness 'Thank you for making me the star I am'," he said.

The actor also discussed how life has intermingled with social media and the youngsters are more video literate than the generation before.

"You really need to focus while trying to hold the attention of youngsters... I'm not saying the older people are boring and you can make them happy with small things but younger people have smaller attention spans so I measure my success by 'Can I hold the attention of a younger audience now because there are so many other distractions'."

Asked about his philanthropic endeavours, the actor said as someone who comes from a lower middle class background in India, he has deep respect for what he has received in life.

"I fully understand that my success is not just because of me, it is a confluence of a lot of people coming together whether through cinema or at a personal level... I can go and stand outside the railing of my house and nobody needs to love me back. It is a two way street. When you become the chosen one for some reason and you have this privilege of good fortune, then it is the natural consequence that you share it with people who made it happen," he said.

The actor said he lost his parents at a young age and the way he looked at life was that he had to work hard and become successful so that his parents don't feel bad that they couldn't fend for him.

Shah Rukh also touched upon his image of a superstar, saying that despite the perception, he has always tried to stay true to who he is.

"I work for the myth that Shah Rukh Khan is, I am an employee of this myth, I am not the owner of this myth," he said.