Karan Johar
Indian Filmmaker and TV Personality
| Date of Birth | : | 25 May, 1972 |
| Place of Birth | : | Mumbai, India |
| Profession | : | Actor, Film Director, Author |
| Nationality | : | Indian |
| Social Profiles | : |
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
|
Karan Kumar Johar, often informally referred to as KJo, is an Indian filmmaker and television personality, who primarily works in Hindi cinema. He has launched the careers of several successful actors and filmmakers under his company Dharma Productions.
Early and personal life
Johar was born on 25 May 1972 in Mumbai, India to film producer Yash Johar, founder of Dharma Productions and Hiroo Johar. He has Punjabi Hindu ancestry from his father's side, and Sindhi Hindu ancestry from his mother's side. He studied at the Green Lawns High School. In his autobiography, An Unsuitable Boy, Johar recounts that he took the entrance test of the elite all-boys boarding school, The Doon School in Dehradun, but scored a zero in mathematics. This led the then headmaster Gulab Ramchandani to write a very "emotional letter" to Johar's mother, declining admission. After Green Lawns, he attended H.R. College of Commerce and Economics, both in Mumbai.
Johar started his career in the entertainment industry as an actor, when he played the role of Shrikant in the 1989 Doordarshan serial Indradhanush. As a child, he was influenced by commercial Indian cinema: He cites Raj Kapoor, Yash Chopra and Sooraj Barjatya as his inspirations. For a time, Johar followed numerology, creating film titles in which the first word and a number of others in the title began with the letter K. After watching the 2006 comedy-drama Lage Raho Munna Bhai which was critical of numerology, Johar decided to stop this practice.
Discussing his sexual orientation, Johar said "Everybody knows what my sexual orientation is. I don't need to scream it out. If I need to spell it out, I won't only because I live in a country where I could possibly be jailed for saying this". In February 2017, Johar became father to twins (a boy and a girl) through surrogacy. The twins were born at Masrani Hospital in Mumbai. Johar named his son Yash after his father, and his daughter Roohi named by rearranging his mother's name Hiroo.
Other work
In addition to working as an assistant director on Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Johar was an actor in the film, playing the minor role of a friend of Shah Rukh Khan’s character. Since then, he has made cameo appearances playing himself in films like Om Shanti Om (2007), Fashion (2008), and Luck by Chance (2009).
He made his full-fledged acting debut alongside Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma in Anurag Kashyap’s period drama Bombay Velvet (2015), in which he played the main antagonist. Although the film did not perform well at the box-office, Johar earned some appreciation for his performance. Critic Sarita A. Tanwar commented, "The only consolation in the film is Karan Johar who brings a lot of dignity to the character of Khambatta... which is commendable since this is totally outside his comfort space."
Johar has worked as a costume designer for Shah Rukh Khan on many films like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), Duplicate (1998), Mohabbatein (2000), Main Hoon Na (2004), Veer-Zaara (2004), and Om Shanti Om (2007).
Johar is the host of Koffee with Karan, a talk show where he interviews actors, directors, producers, and other prominent members of the Hindi film industry. The series has run intermittently since 2004, with seven seasons as of July 2022. Since 2012, he has served as a judge on the reality shows Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa (with Madhuri Dixit and Remo D’Souza), India's Got Talent (with Malaika Arora Khan, Kirron Kher, and Farah Khan) and India's Next Superstars (with Rohit Shetty). In January 2022, he appeared as a judge on the Colors TV's show Hunarbaaz: Desh Ki Shaan along with Mithun Chakraborty and Parineeti Chopra.
Johar is also an investor in an AI-led adtech influencer marketing platform Konfluence. The company had raised a pre-series funding of $4 million as of 8 February 2022.
Quotes
Total 11 Quotes
I found my student of the year, and now Tata Nano is searching for India's student of the year
It's all about loving your parents.
I am a product of Indian cinema; I've grown up watching Indian films ever since I can remember. And song and dance is part of our lives, it's part of our culture we wake up to songs, we sleep to lullabies, you know, we celebrate every religious and traditional function with music.
I don't think you can ever please all audiences.
I am a Gemini and can adapt to most atmospheres. You get two for the price of one when you are a Gemini.
I'm not of the religion but I'm educated enough to understand there is a misconception about it globally.
I want to walk the red carpet at the Oscars. I am in awe of the ceremony, and winning an Oscar would be the most magical moment of my life. I want to make that speech and hold that trophy and say, 'This is for you, India.' That's the line I have rehearsed for God knows how long. But that has to be for a Hindi language film.
I think the endeavor is to just make your film and then hope it travels as much as it can.
I saw 'Brokeback Mountain' in a packed house in Chelsea, New York, when I was filming a Bollywood film there. Chelsea, being a predominately gay neighbourhood, had the most euphoric reaction. I saw couples holding hands and crying at the end. It was the most heartening viewing I have ever been to.
As a child, as a cinemagoer, I think there is nothing better than being in a cinema or watching a film. I think it's just a while magical...it almost feels like you're at a big party in India, where you're singing, you're dancing, you're laughing, you're crying, you feel like you're at a wedding because our films invariably cover all emotions.
