SHAH Rukh Khan is a master of soundbites. Here are some he delivers during the interview:

On what his children think of him

“My kids think I am the best dad in the world. But they don’t have much of a choice, do they?”

On his wife Gauri

“I don’t say this to many people. I am not an easy person to live with. Gauri has known me for almost 25 years now and she understands me perfectly. The cliche would be to say she is my pillar of strength. But I feel we have not known a life separate from each other. Sometimes I feel like we are one being in two bodies. She has never questioned what I do and there is an enormous amount of trust in our relationship.”

On what he tells people who make films with him

“I am not making a nuclear reactor, I am not finding a new way to get to Venus. I am in the business of entertainment, I am merely a storyteller and I tell everyone who makes films with me that we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously.”

On being Mr Nice or Selfish Guy

“I am emotionally unavailable to most people as I need the emotions for my job. People say I am quite evolved. I am not too sure about that. I don’t know whether these things make me Mr Nice Guy or Mr Selfish Guy.”

On his critics

“When someone says or writes fantastic things about me, I don’t believe it. When they criticise or write negative things about me, I don’t believe that either. I know the truth lies somewhere in between. When you make a film, 10 people will love it, another 10 will hate it. I’m fine with that.”

On winning and losing

“I hate losing. I am a bad loser. I am a winner because I don’t know how to lose.”

On making films

“I have never done a film with the market in mind. I may be stubborn and an idiot, but it works for me. I know this is a business but I have always doled out art.”

Khan trivia

> IN his early days, fledgling star Shah Rukh Khan tamed his unruly mane with a distinctly unglam mix of homemade glue and water.

> His co-star Juhi Chawla, from an early film, Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman (1992), was so horrified by Khan’s scrawny frame and untidy hair when she first saw him that she called his actor-producer friend Viveck Vaswani and screamed incredulously: “Eek, this is the next (Bollywood star) Aamir Khan?”

> His first name, Shah Rukh, means “face of the king”.

> The Hindi skills of the son of Muslim parents were not very good initially. But his mother said if he did well in it in school, she would take him to the cinema. As he loved films, he got top marks from then on.