The much awaited episode of ‘My Next Guest with David Letterman’ by the veteran TV host Mr David Letterman interviewing the “king of Bollywood” Shah Rakh Khan is out on Netflix.
The episode starts with some everyday panoramic view of Mumbai vendors, locales and Mumbai suburban railway, with a flying glimpse of the crowd waiting outside ‘Mannat’ (his residence) and the man himself welcoming Letterman in his fortified abode in Bandra.
Dressed in white Pathani kurta, Khan would lead the host to his gallery to wave and do his signature adaab to the sea of fans gathered outside his house. Baffled by the scene, Letterman says “this kind of thing doesn’t happen at my house”.
In his “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction”, David introduces Khan bemusedly “… you don’t know. Maybe you do know, but this is … I don’t know. You know what I’m talking about?”. Later after the show, SRK tweeted about the official trailer of the episode, captioned “… my most cherished intro for any public appearance… love it”.
At the outset, Letterman asked about Khan’s ginormous fan following of 3.5 billion people and his take on his stardom and if any other level of success have satisfied his desire. Accustomed to the humility, Khan is quick to say “I’m happen to be the right person, at the right place, the right scenario, at the right time”. He further says that he has realized halfway his 27 years in the business that he is not half as talented as he think he is “… if I can’t do it with my skill and talent, than I’d better get into the hearts of people”.
The actor further spoke about having lost his father at a tender age of 15 and his mother’s influence in his life. His first experience of visiting a theatre to watch a film is when he was asked by his mother to score a ten-on-ten in his Hindi lessons and he cheated “I got nine words correct, but the tenth one I cheated…”. To which Letterman chimes in “Does this startling confession not affect your 3.5 billion followers? I think the number is dropping.” Famous for his wits, Khan responds “No, but as the Americans do, I’ll apologise publicly and you can forgive me.”
He further talked about his kids, and Khan clarified “… my son does not have what it takes to be an actor. And he realized this himself”.
The conversation also made him reminisce about his mother when she was critical in the ICU, he said “bad things” to her so that she comes back from ‘nirvana’ – “So I sat next to her bedside and I would say things like, I’m going to be really mean to my elder sister, I’ll never work, I’ll start drinking.And I started telling her bad things, hoping that she’d be just on her way to this Niravana place, Godly abode, about to be happy and she’d say ‘Oh my God, I still have to worry about this.”
The actor is currently shooting for his upcoming ‘Don 3’, ‘Operation Khukri’ and ‘Dhoom 4’.
My Next Guest with David Letterman streams on Netflix.
