00:00My parents never brought me up to be a quitter.
00:30Well truth be told, I left university, I was studying in Boston University and I was doing,
00:40I declared my major as liberal arts and then I majored in performing arts and I left my education
00:47because my father was going through this really rough time financially. He had started a business
00:52called EBCL and I just felt, I don't think I was qualified to help in any which way but I just felt
00:57as a son, I needed to be around my father and help in whatever way. So I left my college,
01:03I came back and I started helping him in his company. I started as a production boy,
01:08so I should literally, I mean I was a glorified team maker basically. I just remember
01:15there was one late night, early morning, I was in my room, I had just gone to sleep and my father
01:22called me on the intercom and he said, hey are you awake? I said, well I am now and
01:30he said, will you come up to my study? And I went up to his study and you could make out that he'd
01:33obviously not slept, he'd been up all night just sitting in a study and he said, you know things
01:39aren't working out, my movies aren't working out, this business is not working out, nothing is
01:44working out and I've always believed that when everything is going wrong, go back to basics.
01:55He said, I'm an actor, I got to go back to acting and I'm not happy with the way I'm looking, I'm
02:02not happy with the way I'm feeling, I'm going to do something about it and he said, you know what,
02:06I've decided we're going to make this work and you and I are going to have to work very hard.
02:12I hate to say this to you because you're going to be making your foray into the films
02:18but we're going to fight and let's make this happen and that's the kind of relationship my
02:22father and I share, we're best friends and I said, okay. I went back to bed, he had a shower
02:32and left for the gym at like 5 30 in the morning and from there he came back from the gym,
02:38showered and walked across to Mr. Yash Chopra's house and told Yash uncle that, look,
02:45I don't have a job, nobody's giving me work anymore, my movies aren't working and I've
02:49come to ask you to please give me a film to work in and Yash uncle that evening, he said, okay,
02:56I don't know how can you say that you're my friend, just that I'll work something out
03:00and that evening he sent Aditya Chopra over to him and they offered him more but I've always
03:04said this publicly, my parents never brought me up to be a quitter, it was do or die, I firmly
03:12believe in life, don't ever have a backup, if you have that one backup, you're always going to rely
03:19and know that at the back of your head that I've got that backup, so if this doesn't work, I have
03:23that option and we all think like that, we're all brought up like that, especially in Indian
03:27households, you don't have that one safety net. You've seen Dark Knight Rises, do you remember
03:32that one time when he's trying to break out of the prison and the final time he does it without
03:36the rope and he said, what were they saying and they were just saying, there is no rope,
03:41remember that, that's the way you're going to lead your life man, if you're going to
03:46jump in both feet into the deep end and figure out how to swim because the minute you know that
03:52there is that one option, you're always going to take that option when it gets really tough,
03:57no matter how much willpower you have, how determined you are,
04:01it's just human instinct, when you don't have that safety net, you're just going to have to
04:06make it work and that's the way I've always approached my work, I've never given up
04:11despite any roadblocks or obstacles or setbacks and that's it man, like Rocky says,
04:19it's not about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward,
04:23that's how winning is done.
