Filmmaker Aziz Mirza, who worked with Shah Rukh Khan early in his career and played a major role in introducing him to the world of films, said that Shah Rukh’s success is his own.
He also recalled that Shah Rukh wasn’t interested in doing films, and was happy doing television despite all the interest that movie producers were showing in him. Shah Rukh broke into the films with a streak of releases in the early 1990s. In an interview, Aziz Mirza spoke about his first meeting with Shah Rukh, and the emotional meeting he had with his mother, who passed away before his film debut.
Asked about the time when Shah Rukh would crash at Aziz’s house, the filmmaker said, “Nobody makes anybody. Shah Rukh Khan was always destined to be Shah Rukh Khan. I remember going to Delhi; his mother was very unwell. She asked me, ‘What’ll happen to my son? Will he do well?’ I told her, ‘Be certain of one thing; I don’t know if your son will become a superstar, but he will always do well because he’s a good actor’.”
He continued, “Shah Rukh is an excellent actor. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen much of his later work, but he’s an excellent actor. Somebody has to be with him to just help him out. He is capable of giving you whatever you want. But you have to take it out of him, otherwise Shah Rukh will go his own way; Shah Rukh will be Shah Rukh. But he is capable of giving you whatever you want, but you must know what you want from him, otherwise Shah Rukh will be Shah Rukh.”
Shah Rukh has, on occasion, spoken about . In an appearance on Anupam Kher’s talk show in 2014, Shah Rukh recalled, “I have this theory that a person only leaves the world when they are satisfied. Because if someone asks me to leave my children now I will say that’s impossible, unless I am completely satisfied with their future. So when my mother was in ICU, I sat next to her, and did a very wrong thing. Main unko dukh pahochata raha (I kept hurting her). I thought if I don’t let her be satisfied, she won’t go. I said to her that ‘if you leave, I won’t take care of my sister. I won’t study, I won’t work’ and other such stupid things… But I think these are just childish beliefs, she had to go, and maybe she was satisfied that I’ll take care of my sister, and do alright in life. God knows better, mother knows the best.”