Shahid: SRK treated me like a younger brother

(Excerpts from the interview)

On promoting Boney Kapoor's Milenge Milenge with Kareena Kapoor
"Of course I'm open to doing promotions with Kareena, she's the heroine of the film ya and we're professionals. Aur kissi ko daal nahin sakte na (They can't put someone else in it, can they?)."

On father Pankaj Kapur's Mausam
"My father was very clear that he wanted me to only shoot for this film. I had three or four films already on the floor at the time. Kaminey was supposed to be a 60-day film but once we fixed Charlie's look, which was with the goatee and the long hair we realised that we had to shoot Charlie and Guddu together so I had to shave every time I had to do Guddu and it would take 5 days for the beard to grow back. For 30 days I was just doing my beard. There was a three-four month delay."

On mother Neelima Azim's film project
"As far as my mother is concerned, yes she is making a film and no I'm not part of it. It's not necessary that my entire family should cast me in their films. She never asked me to be part of her film. I think that's wonderful of her; she wanted to do a film on her own. As her son I'm always there. Hum saath-saath hain (We're all together)."

On building his spectacular body
"He put me onto a lifestyle which made it happen. It wasn't about what you did in the gym, it was about what time you slept, the routines you did. He helped me change my metabolism. It took a year and half of consistent hard work. It becomes a lifestyle that you have to follow. But I confess that I do binge on the odd sweetmeats now and then."

On his Kaminey performance
"It was my first double role. Both characters had speech defects. I didn't want the two characters to come across as being caricatures. I was also going against what people were used to seeing me do."

On hosting an awards show with Shah Rukh Khan
"I thought I'd never be able to host a show. I took it on reluctantly but I enjoyed doing it. Live interaction with an audience is great fun. And yeah, I got the opportunity to host it with Shah Rukh bhai. He treated me like a younger brother. Though I did have the jitters before my segment. I only got my script 20 minutes before the show. Because Shah Rukh was busy writing it till the last minute. I read it once and sent him a message asking him to save me during our segment. I was unsure but he managed me really well and I had fun."

"I really like Priyanka, she's one of my favourite co-stars and she's brilliant. I'm very fond of her personally also."

On making his own decisions
"I've made a lot of mistakes but I've got a few things right. I'm really fortunate to be in this position. It's a great time to be in films. The horizons are opening. Today the film industry is like an open field. You can't predict how a film will do, it doesn't matter if you have a big star or not."

(For the full interview by Sailesh Ghelani, pick up the Filmfare issue dated March 17, 2010)