Transcript: SRK, Salman Khan & Aamir Khan – Full Interview at Riyadh Joy Forum 2025

Anybody who ever says, and this would be my experience, this would be Salman’s and Aamir’s and most of the actors who worked for many, many years, that there is nothing like an “it factor.” If somebody ever tells you that, that is absolutely redundant and not true.

You don’t know what the “it factor” is. The “it factor” has got to do with the audience. How they take on to your persona. How you look, how you talk, how you walk. None of that resonates. It’s just something else about a person that an audience starts liking in large numbers.

If you were to honestly ask Aamir right now, he’ll tell you, I don’t know why I’m a star. If you ask me, I’ll tell you, I don’t know why I’m a star.

SALMAN KHAN: Salman is the only one who knows.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Nobody else will know.

SALMAN KHAN: I know because, yeah.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: So Allah has to make you a star. God has been kind.

SALMAN KHAN: Yes.

Staying Grounded Despite Stardom

INTERVIEWER: So this is the thing, because I see a lot of actors and you’ve been here for a very long time and you’ve seen changes and everything has adapted and new mediums have happened. And how do you not lose that sparkle or joy of going every day to work? What is it that makes you?

SALMAN KHAN: Yeah. First, none of us call ourselves stars. We don’t believe in that. It’s some journalists who add these things. Salman Khan star. Shah Rukh Khan, superstar. Aamir Khan, super duper star. We don’t believe this at all.

We still at home are just like everyone else. I still get yelled at by my father, my mother, still get told by my sisters, my brothers. So we’re just normal human beings. And it’s just that there’s so many people who we work with. They are the people who portray average, mediocre people like us, not them, me, to look like a God on screen.

So the credit is not us. It is your DOP, your director, your writer. And then the people, the fans go and see Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan, Sanjay Dutt on screen. And they like what they see on screen.

INTERVIEWER: So to what do you attribute the success that you have? Is it group work like you’re saying right now?

SALMAN KHAN: Success is what Friday, the success of even Bollywood.

INTERVIEWER: Your story is going on such a global platform.

SALMAN KHAN: In general, our films release on a Friday and if the film is a big hit, does well, we’re happy. We come to a stage that the film is not so good, doesn’t do well. Some competitors are very happy.

Adapting to Changing Times

INTERVIEWER: So with everything that’s modern, all the things that are changing, how do you adapt a little bit your craft with the changing times to appeal to the new generation, but at the same time still appeal to the generation that has followed you from the start?

SHAH RUKH KHAN: I think at the end of it all, it’s all about the content, the emotional content that we have in our storytelling. Aamir is an extremely organized perfectionist, as they call him.

SALMAN KHAN: No, no, no.

AAMIR KHAN: He’s not organized at all.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: He’s not organized, but he works very hard trying to tell a story. Salman has his freewheeling way to come and work because it comes from the heart. I try to amalgamate both of these, but at the end, I think the core value that the three of us and all the other stars Salman mentioned and lots of other stars who’ll come along the way, I think there’s an emotional connect that our films have.

Maybe it’s our culture, maybe it’s the fact that we all belong to, in India at least. And I think that’s why more so in Saudi also. There’s a familial connect somewhere, whatever the story. If I’m playing a bad guy, a good guy, a happy guy, a poor guy, a rich guy, whatever character we are playing, I think somewhere the culture part of it and the emotional connect transcends boundaries of languages, platforms, as you mentioned, whether it’s on telephone or an iPad or on OTT.

I think it’s the storytelling emotional connect that binds every actor, not just the three of us. We’ve been very fortunate. Like Salman mentioned, God has been too kind to us. We just get up in the morning and do our work as simply as he said, being lambasted by our families at home for doing right and wrong. But we just get up in the morning and go back to work.

But I think it’s the emotional connect that somehow because of hundreds of people who work with us, have been able to portray us and we’ve been able to tell these familial, emotionally, culturally common stories for the rest of the world in spite of the language that we speak.

The Global Appeal of Bollywood

INTERVIEWER: So what do you think makes it appealing for such a global scale? Is it just the emotional part or could it be the addition of music, the image, the photo? I mean, I remember when I was starting acting and everybody was like, okay, you need to go to Bollywood, not Hollywood. And I remember I had a period where I started watching.

SALMAN KHAN: You should have come, you’d have made it.

INTERVIEWER: Should have. Actually, I used to live already. Thank you.

SALMAN KHAN: Katrina can do it, but it requires a lot of hard work. And first it requires you to speak the language. If I want to do an Arabic film, I will have to learn the language.

INTERVIEWER: That’s interesting. Wow. But I was thinking, do you believe you have to take a lot of risks in this industry? Because I feel like all of you have. You’re also wearing producer hats on, not just actors. So for me, I always wondered, is there any limitations to just being actors? Is there a reason why you wanted to produce Aamir? Do you want to answer?

The Role of Destiny and Hard Work

AAMIR KHAN: Sorry, what is your question?

INTERVIEWER: Becoming a producer?

AAMIR KHAN: Because, let me go back to your earlier question of what is a star? Like Shah Rukh said, I think it’s impossible to pinpoint.

SALMAN KHAN: Perhaps.

AAMIR KHAN: I think all three of us were very fortunate that we were born in India, born in a country where we could be part of Hindi cinema. Had we been born somewhere else, we wouldn’t have been here.

SALMAN KHAN: So I think if you were born in Hollywood, those guys wouldn’t have been there.

AAMIR KHAN: Well, so I’m saying it’s a lot of, it’s the opportunities. It’s where you are at what time, fate, whether you call it fate or whatever destiny, where you are at that time. Of course, everyone is hard working. All of us work hard. And a lot of people who want to come into any field work very hard.

But it’s also a lot of, are you at the right place at the right time? Many things work in your favor which are not in our control. Many things are not in our control. So it’s a mix of all of that, I guess.

SALMAN KHAN: Yeah. See, Aamir comes from a film background. So do I. This man here, didn’t he come from Delhi?

SHAH RUKH KHAN: May I interject, Salman? Sorry. I also come from a film family. Salman’s family is my family. So I’m also like.

AAMIR KHAN: So now you know why Shah Rukh is a star.

Dealing with Fame and Social Media

INTERVIEWER: Well, that’s why. That’s so nice to see this relationship between you guys. How do you feel in general?

SALMAN KHAN: That’s only on stage.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: You could see us backstage, what we do right after this.

INTERVIEWER: Well, how’s your relationship with stardom in general and everything that happens? I know sometimes stardom can consume people and sometimes it can feed you. I mean, we’re all humans here, right? Sometimes we want to have bad days.

And now you feel like with you appealing to so many audiences and having this much presence on social media, how do you feel it impacts you on a mental level? Does it feed your soul or can it get overwhelming sometimes?

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Well, it is challenging.

AAMIR KHAN: I think it is challenging. Being in the public eye all the time is challenging. I think amongst the three of us, I’m probably the most reluctant star.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: You always wanted to be a star.

SALMAN KHAN: More than both of us because he was the first born star.

AAMIR KHAN: I like to be in corners. I don’t like the limelight on me. I’m not comfortable with that.

INTERVIEWER: Are you an introvert?

AAMIR KHAN: I’m more of an introvert, yeah. So I’m uncomfortable in many ways, but all of us deal with it in our own way, I guess.

The Power of Belief Over Noise

SHAH RUKH KHAN: I think, I don’t want to take away the import of social media, but I do believe that when it comes to social media and especially being in the limelight or in the glare of public all the time, which any public figure has, not only in films, otherwise also.

Yeah, today you just have to have blinkers on. You have to believe. Cinema, story writing, storytelling, creative work, the beginning germ is belief. So if you have belief, and this is what I’m doing, and inshallah, this will turn out to be well. Hopefully this will turn out to be well. What others say does not matter.

So you have to have blinkers on. You just have to say, there’s going to be a lot of noise, too much noise all around you. “Oh, you should dress up like this. He should sit like this. His film should have been like this.” I think every morning, if we were to look at social media, people tell us what next film to do.

SALMAN KHAN: Also.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Who we should star with in the film, who the director should be. But you have to believe in a simple, basic idea of storytelling and just start your day with that, end your day with that, end your year with that. And I think you should end your whole career like that.

Everything else is noise. You just tell your story, the story.

AAMIR KHAN: That you believe in.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: It’s as simple as that. We’ve been doing it for 35 years. Maybe I put it too simply for people who are starting off and who are now surrounded by this fantastic social media influx in every part of our lives may have problems dealing with it. The youngsters will have problems.

But if you were to take anything from our experience, like he said, he’s an introvert. Whatever I know of Salman, I don’t think he wants to be in the public eye. Personally, I’m very shy. So we actually are people who would not love to be in the public eye all the time. We deal with it because it’s part of a job now.

Beyond that, I don’t think either of us takes it seriously. We just make sure our work is taken more seriously than that.

The Impact of Cinema on Society

SALMAN KHAN: He doesn’t come out of his house. He doesn’t come out of his house. I don’t come out of my house only when we have to work. That is when we have to go to shoots.

See, I believe I remember must have been about 13, 14. I went to see this film called Enter the Dragon. And when I came out of the theater, I thought I was Bruce Lee and I got beaten up. But that impact is that I realized one thing is that when you come out of the theater, somebody should want a son like you.

A mother should want a son like you. A father should want a son like you. A sister should want a brother like you. A girl should want a husband or a boyfriend like you. And when you come out of the theater, you should go back home at least a 20, 25% a better person.

And that character is liked, so he’s liked by older women. That I want a son like this. I want a brother. Now we’ve come to a stage like, I want a father like him. Very soon we are going to be. We want grandfathers like him. Granddad.

INTERVIEWER: But do you feel like you have to be. You cannot necessarily be your authentic self when you have such. When you’re put on such a pedestal of people wanting to be like you, wanting to do that, that you don’t get to express your weaknesses. Because as human beings, we all do have weaknesses as well.

Success, Failure, and Staying Grounded

SALMAN KHAN: Success has made more failures than failure itself. You fail, get complacent, you stand up, you start working a lot harder. Success, if this goes to your head, then your old age is going to be really painful. So you should never let success go to your head.

I mean, you cannot take the credit. You can take the credit for failure because you signed the film, you’ve done the project, but you cannot ever take the credit for success. It belongs to everyone.

INTERVIEWER: And the energy. That’s very correct. And I always thought that acting, we’re trading energies with people and that people require your energy all the time. So my question would be, when you have such a huge fan base and audiences and people around you all the time, where do you resource yourself?

And where do you. What’s your relationship with the fans? And how do you maintain healthy boundaries with people so that you’re able to have your bad day or able to focus on the scene you want to do without necessarily having to give your attention to everyone around?

SHAH RUKH KHAN: I think, Razan, what happens is when you’re asking these questions to the three of us, the answer would be similar. You just have to be true to yourself. And when you become a star, people expect a certain kind of behavior from you, certain kind of, out in the public that we start to learn.

As a matter of fact, stardom of the level that Salman has seen, Aamir has seen, I’ve been fortunate enough to see, actually humbles you. It makes you grateful to all the forces around you. And one of the biggest forces are the audience who’s loving you so much.

So the humility always becomes, I’m sure, for all of us and all the other actors as the years go by, that I am in the service of the audience. I really need to make sure that they are entertained. Like Salman said, when they walk out, they should feel a better person because they’ve seen a film. When they walk out, they should aspire to be somebody or they should identify with the character we are playing.

So at the end of it all, all actors, at least in our context, would be that there is nothing else that we want to think about. As a matter of fact, I think we don’t even like to call them fans. These are people who love us. You talk about energies. We just want to share this positivity back with them that they have given to us. Not only shared for the last 35 years.

So I think it’s a very gratifying feeling. It’s a feeling of gratitude. It’s a feeling of wanting to serve everybody who comes to watch our films in the best way possible. There’s never been a finger lifted, an expression done, a dialogue done without keeping in mind, are we making sure everybody who comes to watch this film is happy to see or goes back, like Salman said, a better person.

So it’s a. It’s. You just have to be honest to yourself and say, I’m in the service of storytelling to this huge gamut, this huge sea of people who love us so much.

Sources of Inspiration and Energy

INTERVIEWER: Yeah. And how do you recharge yourself with all these things? Like, where do you find your source of inspiration on a daily basis to be able to give everybody else that?

SHAH RUKH KHAN: I find it in my children. I find kids very refreshing, very resourceful. And Salman has a lot of children in his family. Aamir has kids. I find them great source of energy. I just find their ideas now.

I’ve been fortunate to be first, let me just say thank you, Joy Forum, for giving us this opportunity. Thank you, Adnan, for having us here. Thank you for creating this. I’ll tell you the reason. Last night we were together. Last night we were together and we got to meet so many people. We met the team from Squid Games, we met Speed. We met Mr. Beast.

And this energy that we see of so many other people that we’ve only experienced on screen, never met personally, really helps us also to think. Okay, here is a congregation of people that all of us have come to this platform in Saudi, sharing, wanting to tell people good stories to entertain them. I think that’s refreshing for me.

When I come to a forum like this, get to meet us in this kind of setting, we meet otherwise at home and have a great time. But this is really nice to come and say, okay, there’s so many people wanting to share ideas. You take refreshment from there, you take energy from there. And yes, the more innocence you spend time with, the more energy you get to express in acting.

AAMIR KHAN: I find, I find reading really helps me. I love reading since I was a small kid. So that is something that, that input of characters, ideas that, that really inspires me when I read a good book.

SALMAN KHAN: Now singing as well.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Aamir is singing also. He’s learning classical singing for the last two, two years now. Okay, now these two have decided to.

AAMIR KHAN: Start pulling my leg.

INTERVIEWER: Are they? Would you like to.

SALMAN KHAN: Please? So I think basically, our families keep us grounded. And we know that till the time we don’t give it our blood and sweat the hardest that we can work, tearing ligaments, breaking bones. I don’t think that the audience will. They want to see hard work. They want to see that we’re taking our time off, we’re taking a whole day off to go and watch a movie. We want to see you at your best.

So that is what keeps us going because they are taking their families. They’re going to see somebody who they don’t know, but yet we’re in their living rooms and their bedrooms, we’re on their phones. So we all the time have to give it our best so that their money is well spent when they come and watch our movies.

And basically our families keep us grounded. And we’ve seen, we’ve seen, from nobodies, we were nobodies to such heights of success and then suddenly disaster after disaster so that failure has kept us all balanced, that this is always, never going to be there. This is going to go now. How we going to handle this is. That’s the only one thing in our mind that we should be normal human beings.

Content and Allah ka shukrana karna chahiye, nashukra nahi hona chahiye. That whatever he’s given us till whatever time, till whenever, we are grateful for that. And 99.9% of the people don’t have even 0.1% of what we have. And it is because of them that we have what we have today. And we all are very grateful to them.

Cultural Connections Between India and the Middle East

INTERVIEWER: That’s such a lovely word. And hearing you all speak about families, it just shows how we have similar values in the Middle East as well. Like, we’re very family oriented. So it’s very refreshing to see the strong bonds. And what do you think would be the similarities between the Arabic culture and the Indian culture?

AAMIR KHAN: Well, whatever. I mean, this is the second time that I’m coming to Saudi Arabia. It’s a beautiful country. I came a few months ago for the Red Sea Festival and now for this one. I think that the people here are extremely loving, extremely respectful. There’s a lot of positivity in everyone here, so that’s wonderful to see.

INTERVIEWER: And generosity, I find.

AAMIR KHAN: Certainly you’re absolutely right. So there are a lot of similarities. I think the emotional key that Indians have is very similar to the, to all of Middle East. And I would say even like I’ve been to China and over there, I find that the emotional key of Chinese people is very similar to Indians as well. So it’s not just, I think it’s the Middle East. India and even the east has a very similar key in terms of their emotions. That’s what I’ve experienced.

SALMAN KHAN: And also the respect that we have not only for our parents, for our grandparents, that’s true for our mothers. And that respect is. I mean, you have it here, the whole Arab world has it. And so do we. That mother is nothing above mother. And there is. And no man can ever be happy for a person’s success than his own father.

So we know these things, we know that they’re on our side. And the fact that we will stand up in front of them, we’ll bow down in front of them is because we have that tremendous amount of respect for our people. You have it here, we have it there. And that thing of that we should not hurt our loved ones. So these are things that is common in your culture and our culture.

Bridging Bollywood and Saudi Arabia

INTERVIEWER: That’s true. And this is what I wanted to ask you next is that Saudi Arabia is really becoming like a hub, attracting people from all over the world to come do projects here. So in what way do you think you can bridge the gap between Bollywood and actually doing projects in Saudi Arabia? Do you see? What is your vision for that?

SHAH RUKH KHAN: I think after having spoken, the fact that we have so many cultural binding things, familial things, we are all God fearing. I think these are commonalities between us and Saudi. And actually if you really expand your vision, most of the world believes in these three tenets.

And I think what Saudi Arabia, through forums like this and other things that are happening in Saudi Arabia lately, I think is opening up a midpoint for the world from the west to come in, from the east to come in, share ideas, plan things. And to be honest, the openness and the hospitality and the love with which everybody is welcoming here, I think that itself is so. It makes you feel so wanted.

When I come here once, I’ve been here a couple of times now and I’ve flew. I’ve been shooting here for about 15, 20 days. For me it is, look, I’d love to come back here. You just need an excuse to come again. And inshallah, work also brings us back. Forums like this bring us back, but at an individual level also.

I think the fact that Saudi has cultivated this landscape for all kinds of people to come down here, share ideas, nurture goodwill and basically just be able to create content. When I say content, it’s not just for a platform. Just be able to tell stories to each other which make the world happy.

The world sometimes is an unhappy place. I think we all come together, congregate in places like this, we share a bit of happiness and hopefully it will transcend and go out to the rest of the world. So there is not going to be any problem. I don’t know if you are aware or not, but Salman and Sanjay have already done a bit part in the film which is being made here, which is fantastic.

AAMIR KHAN: Looking.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: I am looking.

SALMAN KHAN: We played small parts. We did a guest appearance in. It’s called and it’s so sweet Seven Dogs.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Can I just say in Saudi they call it guest of honor. They don’t call it.

SALMAN KHAN: Yesterday Adnan was there taking care of us.

The Gateway to Global Storytelling

SHAH RUKH KHAN: So it’s just opening of this gateway and I’m sure we’ll all be working here. People from Saudi, the talent, the singers, the writers, the poets, filmmakers, cameramen, they’ll come down to India and do stuff and all of us go around and conquest the whole world with the storytelling at the end of it all.

And see, I think that’s what India means. It’s not a difficult thing if your heart is in the right place, like ours is from India and Saudi’s is from Saudi. I think we’ll connect and continue telling lovely stories together. And I think it’s going to be a really good thing for the Arab film industry.

SALMAN KHAN: You know, since Saudi has just opened up and they’re making theaters after theaters after theaters. So for the Arab film industry, because it’s a very large Arab community, a lot of people speak the language. Now just imagine you have soon 20, 30,000 theaters here. The amount of work that your film industry will get and most of the times that other industry needs Arabic actors.

So there will be a lot of work and a lot of revenue that is generated. And I think that the Arab film industry could be one of the largest film industries.

Saudi Arabia’s Inclusive Vision

AAMIR KHAN: I also feel that Saudi Arabia over the last few years is demonstrating with its actions that it wants to be more inclusive. It wants to be part of larger things. And I think that that demonstration with actions is going to pay a lot of dividends.

Like Salman was saying, it’ll bring a lot of work here. The fact that Saudi is inviting creative people, not just creative people, I think sports people as well from all over the world. By their actions, they’re indicating that they would like to be much more inclusive. And I think that itself is a very strong statement and a strong step in the right direction.

INTERVIEWER: So what project would have to land right now in front of you that’s a co-production between Bollywood and Saudi Arabia?

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Shahrazan, Salman bhai is learning Arabic.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, that’s wonderful.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: I’m learning the dance and Aamir is going to audition for the song right now. Come on, come on. Aamir is learning. See, they’ll keep on. You know what my problem is? They’ll keep asking intellectual questions and we’ll run out of answers after that. We’re entertainers.

INTERVIEWER: I’m all done with my questions.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: You’re sounding too intelligent. We are getting a call about what else nice word, big words to use. So we are going to ask Aamir to save us. He’s just been learning. So we all have to be happy that he started learning. And he’ll do a little rendition and the loudest claps have to come. Salman and me are going to clap the loudest when he sings.

An Impromptu Performance

AAMIR KHAN: So I love singing. I don’t know how much other people like my singing, but I enjoy it. So why don’t all of us, three of us sing here?

SHAH RUKH KHAN: We’ll do the backup dancing. Why don’t we join like we do in Hindi film? Salman and he will just stand behind and we do a little dance. Salman, our step is this.

SALMAN KHAN: Whichever song you want to sing, Aamir, we are your background dancers.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Big round of applause, ladies and gentlemen. His first public performance of his learning the classical singing and in Saudi Arabia.

INTERVIEWER: That was great.

AAMIR KHAN: Actually, Salman sings really well. I’ve heard him sing.

SALMAN KHAN: Yeah, but no, only in the studio. And after that, the technicians spent about two months correcting my voice. So I don’t think it’s a good idea singing right here now.

Also, you know, Saudi Arabia has given so much of employment to our people, people from the south, people from all over India. So it’s amazing everyone because they pay them well, they take great care of them here. So most of the people, the working class as well as everybody, they get a much better salary here. Their life is much better. The families there are taken care of. So we are really thankful and grateful for all the employment that you have given our people.

Stories Waiting to Be Told

INTERVIEWER: So definitely there are stories to be told. Since there’s such a large presence here of people from India, I guess I’m already writing a script in my mind. So I wonder what would you like? What’s your dream project that you could think right now or in a special location or a special genre that you see would fit Saudi Arabia?

SALMAN KHAN: See right now if you make a Hindi film and just release it here, it’ll be a super hit. If you make a Tamil film or a Telugu film or a Malayali film, they will do hundreds of crores of business just in this belt, just in the GCC belt. Because so many people from our countries have come here. There are people from Balochistan, there are people from Afghanistan, there are people from Pakistan. Everyone is working here.

INTERVIEWER: That’s so nice. Do you have anything to say?

SHAH RUKH KHAN: No, I mean, you’re asking about a dream project. I think let me show off a little. It’s been too long I’ve been humble on this platform. Yeah, I’ve been being too nice, too kind. I have to say if three of us are in a project, it is a dream itself.

AAMIR KHAN: So whenever we do.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Absolutely, hopefully not a nightmare, it will be a dream if the three of us are together. And inshallah, whenever we get an opportunity, a story, we’re always sitting, whenever Aamir, Salman, myself, we get together. And I look up to these two guys genuinely, I do because they’ve been working in the industry.

SALMAN KHAN: He still does. He still does.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Look at me. I’m still looking up to Salman. So I look up to them honestly. Because the kind of ups and downs and the work they’ve done, starting from scratch and having worked way up to this, these people are aspirational and inspirational and somewhere I feel really thankful that I have the opportunity to sit on the same forum, same stage and the same house and chat with them.

So if we are able to get together for a film which we discuss a lot of times, we just need to make sure it does not let anyone down.

The Dream Collaboration

SALMAN KHAN: So Shah Rukh has this one thing, keeps on saying it over and over again that I want him to say that here, try and say that here, that nobody can afford us three in a film together.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: I don’t want to say it in Saudi because everybody will get upset. Habibi habibi, done, done, done. No, we joke. We joke because the affordability is not just the money. The affordability is the kind of timings we follow for work. We’re very hard working. We do come on time. But we have our own eccentricities. We’ve been working for too long.

So can anyone afford those eccentricities? I always tell you when we are working together, we start laughing and joking so much. I’m sure any director, producer and writer will say, “Can you start working now, guys, please, can we stop joking about and all.”

So I think there’s a lot of goodness we three share. There’s a lot of goodness we need to tell a story with. And one fine day the three of us will be in a place where somebody takes on all the eccentricities and says, “Come on, three of you work together and have a good time.”

SALMAN KHAN: Inshallah, when we three work together, the hero, the star of the project is not going to be Shah Rukh, Aamir, or me. It’s going to be the script, the script and the script itself. That’s it.

INTERVIEWER: That’s nice. But I can see you guys doing comedy together, action together, drama together, like the world is your oyster. So I feel like today is maybe like a day that’s special where something’s going to be born, hopefully.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Aamir, are you with us?

SALMAN KHAN: He’s already zoned out. He’s spaced out.

INTERVIEWER: So what can we do to bring back your attention? What do you want to talk about?

SALMAN KHAN: On the third question?

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Okay, he’ll answer you from the third question. Now he’s understood the third question and he’ll come back. He’s been thinking very well.

INTERVIEWER: The third question was, what are you also producing as well? I think that was the third question.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Do you want to answer that? When can we all come together?

AAMIR KHAN: No, I missed that. What were you asking?

SHAH RUKH KHAN: When can we all come together? When can you do a film?

The Power of Story

AAMIR KHAN: I think emotionally all three of us are ready to do a film together. It’s just a matter of coming across the right script. So hopefully, as Salman said, it’ll be the script that’s most important for all three of us, I guess. And once it’s a good story, which all three of us like, then I think the rest of the things will fall into place.

SALMAN KHAN: Don’t matter now.

AAMIR KHAN: It’s always a story for me right from the beginning of my career. It’s always been, I, as a kid, I’ve always loved listening to stories as I’m sure you all do as well. So I remember when I was a kid, we used to harass our cook so that when she would finish cooking, then she would sit in the kitchen and then we would all gather around her. Her name was Naseem B. And she would tell us stories.

I loved listening to stories from the time, from childhood. I began reading at a very young age, six. At the age of six, I began reading. So I got into stories. And then my father was a producer. So a lot of directors and writers would come to pitch stories.

SALMAN KHAN: My father used to come.

AAMIR KHAN: Yeah, yeah.

SALMAN KHAN: My father used to come to your father?

AAMIR KHAN: Yeah, yeah. So I sat in from the age of 6 or 7 years till the age of 16, 17. Almost all the stories that my father heard, I heard. And to begin with, I used to hide behind the curtain because my father was very hot tempered, so I was scared that he might get upset with me. So I used to hide behind the curtain.

And then he got to know that I’m listening to his stories. So he brought me in front. And I think today when I look back, I realize that that was my training ground. I never imagined I would be in the films at that time, but just hearing stories and hearing the analysis of a story from people who are in the field, writers, directors, that taught me a lot as I was growing up.

It was like a gurukul. The gurukul style of learning is probably what I went through. Also, because of films being made, my father and uncle were both filmmakers. We’ve seen films evolve from the story to the prep, to the way six reels have been shot, eight reels have been shot. And we’ve seen screenings of our films which our parents have made. So that entire process was a big learning, I think for me during my childhood.

SALMAN KHAN: And since my father is a scriptwriter, so we used to do this every day at home.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Yeah, yeah.

AAMIR KHAN: And in fact, Salim saab and Javed saab, Salman’s father, Salim saab, the two of them were the most successful writers that India has ever seen. I think they wrote 22 scripts together, out of which 18 are super hits. I mean, what a track record.

SALMAN KHAN: Yeah.

Advice for the Next Generation

INTERVIEWER: So what advice would you have for the next generation of actors that’s coming up now in a very different world?

AAMIR KHAN: I think we started, I think three of us will need advice from the young actors because they are so good. Have you seen the young actors? They’re doing their first film. Amazing. I think the young guys don’t need any advice from us. We need advice from them in their first film.

SALMAN KHAN: In fact, if we give you advice, don’t follow.

The Next Generation of Indian Cinema

AAMIR KHAN: No, I feel that the younger generation is 10 steps ahead of us. I’m certain about that. Because the quality of work that young actors are doing – actors, actresses, writers – amazing stuff. So I get really inspired to watch young people work. I mean, if you see “Lapata Ladies,” they’re all new actors here. And when I saw the first cut…

SALMAN KHAN: They have a huge advantage over us because when we were growing up, we didn’t have CCTV cameras, we didn’t have phones with cameras.

AAMIR KHAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SALMAN KHAN: These kids are making… they don’t… they’re not camera conscious at all. You know, they’re just very free.

AAMIR KHAN: They’ve grown up with cameras around.

SALMAN KHAN: Because they’re facing the camera all the time from their phones to… I mean you walk into a supermarket, you know that the cameras are following you all the time. We didn’t have all that stuff. So the first time when we faced the camera and the camera went, you know, that nervous. And because of that we used to go into a take, another take, another take. That sound used to distract us.

But now today the equipment is so amazing. And everywhere there are cameras, cameras, cameras, cameras, cameras. So the younger generation, they don’t have…

AAMIR KHAN: The fear at all.

SALMAN KHAN: Like how now Aryan made up that show that’s of Bollywood and done really, really well. So now his upbringing is the same but he didn’t want to… I’d rather have him in front of the camera and supersede his father. And like I said earlier, Aryan will be the only person he’ll be happy with if Aryan supersedes him.

Advice for Young Filmmakers

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Or if Salman has a son, then I’d like him to be the biggest star ever in the history of mankind. So we are working on that.

But I have a little advice for youngsters. Like Salman said, he’s very right. All the youngsters are now very video literate. Cameras are on their faces, in their hands, everywhere around. And I think yes, it has helped Aryan and all the youngsters now who are coming as actors or directors or storytellers because they’re so used to cameras being around.

Like Salman said, when we started with that ID2C camera, we used to get scared. There’s a sound, you had to talk over it. There was no sync sound. It was very, very difficult.

But I think there are two parts to being a creative person. One is the art, one is the craft. And the craft is now very easily available because of technology. It’s in your hands. But within all that, do not let your art go. And what is art? Art has to be the innocence which Salman Khan has retained over the years. What Aamir Khan has retained over the years, hopefully I can retain over the years – the innocence of just wanting to tell a story in the simplest form.

Like he heard from his father. Like he’s heard from my father. I’m sure growing up, I heard from my father and mother. So I think if you are able to keep it simple, don’t get carried away by the craft, by the social media, by the peripherals of telling a story, which are very many. Marketing, publicity, wanting to be a star, being on the cover of a magazine. There are lots of noise around.

If you’re able to take the craft, learn it. But don’t let the craft take over the art that you have. And the art is the heart. That’s all you have. You have to feel from within.

INTERVIEWER: Wow. “The art is the heart.”

SHAH RUKH KHAN: And let me tell you, we are on a forum where we’ll be very honest about it. There are days when we get it wrong, we also know it’s gone wrong. We couldn’t do better than what we wanted to do. We go back home even now and sit back and say, “Hey, I could have done… can I ask for one more take?” We think that way and we also feel very sad when all of it goes wrong.

But wake up in the morning and feel that we have to get back to what we know best, which is just basic storytelling. And it is very touching to hear that these two wonderful superstars, not only of a country but of the world, have just grown up and decided to tell stories because their father used to tell them stories. So it’s as simple as that.

The stories that you hear at home from your family are the ones you want to tell outside. And that simplicity is the art. So please retain that. Work hard. Bad days, good days. Just keep working hard.

Celebrating New Talent

SALMAN KHAN: Shah Rukh, have you seen that? You and Junaid.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Junaid and me.

AAMIR KHAN: Oh, we did an ad. That ad you’re talking about. Yeah.

SALMAN KHAN: So I called him up and there was a scene that they recreated of “Andaz Apna Apna.” And Junaid has done it so well. So well. I called him up, I said, “Junaid is fantastic in this.” So now being Aamir’s son, okay, he’s grown up. I mean, I used to carry him in my… both their children. Now I’m working on my own. But that’s besides the point.

But fantastic. I called him up and I said, “You know what job you guys have done on that?” So it was a promotion for your YouTube channel.

AAMIR KHAN: That’s right. That’s right. An amazing, amazing job.

The Future of Indian Cinema

INTERVIEWER: Thank you so much, guys. I think we are nearly out of time. I think I could have spent a lot more time here with you guys, but in a nutshell, is there anything you can summarize and maybe in one phrase? What’s going to be the future of Bollywood and what do you envision it with this myriad of cultures coming together?

SHAH RUKH KHAN: I think more than talking about Hindi film industry, Bollywood, South Indian film industry, the three of us would like to stand together and thank Saudi for giving us this opportunity.

INTERVIEWER: Let’s go.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: And thank you, Razan, for looking out.

INTERVIEWER: Thank you so much, man.

SALMAN KHAN: Let’s call it… and let’s not call it Bollywood anymore. Let’s call it the Hindi film industry.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: And we’d like to thank the whole of Saudi for having the three of us here.

SALMAN KHAN: Thank you so much.

SHAH RUKH KHAN: Thank you for all the love and respect. Thank you. We’ve had… the three of us have had more fun being together than you had listening to us, I’m sure. So God bless you and inshallah, we’ll be here more often and make films together with Saudi, with India, for the rest of the world.

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