I don't want to work with new comers says Karan Johar

In the first half of Karan Johar's conversation with Raja Sen, the filmmaker spoke about stepping out of his comfort zone, and being more honest as a filmmaker.

As the film-faffing continues, Johar discusses the problem of stars and image, the basic Bollywood screenwriting hurdle that should never change, and why he would never cast newcomers in his films.

Some of those are the way they are, and the way they will be. I think if I yank myself totally out of my zone, it might affect me. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have also composed music that is completely different: there is no lipsync song in My Name Is Khan, it's all background. And the music is not Western at all, barring the fact that it's somewhere fusion based. Also it's got different voices, people I haven't worked with.

When I spoke to Shah Rukh, I said 'look, it's very important that you play even this character as a mainstream hero,' because that's one call that I took commercially. I felt he had to be an endearing character, no matter what. So if that takes bringing about a certain level of 'cutiefying' at times, or toning down the disorder in areas but still maintaining a regular pitch, I think it's imperative.

We sent the script to the National Autistic Society, just to read the dialogues. Because there are a lot of things characters like Rizwan Khan don't say. They say things literally, so there are a lot of expressions they won't use. And then we sent the first bits of rushes to people, to see if we're doing okay. Because we needed to know. You see, it's such a varied disorder and there are so many strains of it, there's no one way of doing it. So one had to strike that balance between the projection of this character on mainstream celluloid and getting the facts right.

So, therefore, having Shah Rukh and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Sharmishtha [Roy, art director] and Manish [Malhotra, costume designer] and all the people I've worked with earlier were also important. But I think all of them have been challenged. I don't think they've done something like this. We're very far away from the release, and one can never be sure, but the feeling definitely was that we haven't done this before. So either we could have totally screwed it up or maybe got it right, so that's something that I don't know. At all.

My name is Khan is a serious film. No doubt about it. That's why it has a world of its own, its own beat. But I would say it's a drama, a quintessential drama which is definitely serious. There's nothing frivolous about it.

Karan Johar speaks about his new film My Name Is Khan. He says he is not comfortable working with newcomers that’s why he chose Shahrukh Khan and Kajol and Shankar-Ehsan-Loy for his film.