Shah Rukh Khan’s ready to talk “Don 2” — and even if it means getting up before sunrise Pacific Time and promising to keep the interview to seven minutes, no reporter can say no. Khan spoke to India-West from Mumbai Dec. 13 about the inner workings of his version of the iconic character, first created by Amitabh Bachchan in 1978 and then updated by Khan in writer-director Farhan Akhtar’s hit film “Don: The Chase Begins Again” in 2006. “Don 2,” in 3D, opens Dec. 23.

“In ‘Don 1,’ I was playing supposedly a character, Vijay, who is acting like Don, but actually he’s Don who’s acting like Vijay acting like Don,” Khan told India-West with a laugh.

“There were a lot of restrictions because you could not do anything which would fool the audience. We had to let the audience feel till the end that this is Vijay playing Don, though it was actually Don who had killed Vijay.”

It turns out that Khan is very good at being bad, so they decided to move the “Don” sequel in that direction, he explained. Costarring in the sequel are Boman Irani, Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta.

“We got very encouraged at the ending of the film that people accepted the fact that the bad guy won,” Khan told India-West.

“I always tell everyone that there is a huge amount of evil in all of us, which does not come to the fore because that’s how we are brought up and educated. Society has curbed us, but we always have that residing [within]. No human being in the world is complete without good and evil.  There is this repressed badness in all of us.” 

Enter the slim, leather-clad, stylish character of Don.

“If we were to make badness very mean, very sexy, very smart, very appealing, what would it be like? We thought the character of Don would be the manifestation, or the personification, of being evil. Attractively so. So you have a lot of elements in that.

“The first quality that I attach to Don whenever I talk about it is the sensuality,” said Khan.

“I play it overtly sensual, but not macho — maybe perhaps a little androgynous, a little feline. All these qualities are poetic as Farhan writes them. He enjoys the chase.”

Key to creating Don’s sensual character was Khan’s wardrobe, a luxurious array designed by Jaimal Odedera and interpreted in soft leather, textured wool and rich velvet. Odedera had previously designed the costumes for “Game,” “Patiala House” and “Chandni Chowk to China.”

“The idealogy was to keep [Don] very sharp in this film, very lean, instead of bulking him up with overcoats, or hats, or accessories,” said Khan.

“He wears very Italian-cut suits, very clean-cut, like maybe half a size too small sometimes, so that when he stands he looks very lean. 

“You’re clear that this character shouldn’t look buffed up. He should be muscular, but he should cut a very sharp figure, the way his hair is combed, the way he walks, the way the clothes hang on the character.”

“Don 2” was shot on location in Malaysia and Germany, where, having conquered the Asian underworld, Don (Khan) now seeks to become Europe’s leading criminal mastermind. The bosses of the European mafias, and law enforcement from around the world, are conspiring to take Don down, either by assassination or arrest. 

Khan wanted to do as many of the stunts as possible, which sometimes put him in harm’s way.

“I’d say three things were the scariest moments for me,” he recalled.

“We did an action sequence in Malaysia where a bridge collapsed, and you have to keep ahead of the bridge falling behind you.

“The second one was the car driving, in Germany [a year ago] on the Autobahn with four or five cars chasing you all the time, and there are a lot of cameras around you. I do the car stunts myself, most of them, and we had a bang-up once. The cameras got destroyed and it was quite scary. 

“The third one was jumping from a building — the first shot I did for ‘Don’ as a matter of fact. It was in Berlin, it was very cold, and they put me on top of a 450-feet building and said ‘Jump.’ It’s a little scary to go up and hang in the cold, and a thousand Germans are standing below and they like you, so you’re not going to say no I’m not going to do it, you have to do it!” He laughed. “I can’t look un-Don-like!”

Khan has become an icon, named in 2008 as one of Newsweek’s “50 Most Powerful People in the World.” Last week, Khan announced that Kraken, the luxury publisher whose “Opus” series of books is a darling among collectors, would soon release “King Khan: The Opus.” “Opus” tomes, each of which cost upward of $2,000 per copy, highlight the lives of interesting world personalities. 

“They’re about 3 feet across and weigh about 30-40 kgs each,” Khan told India-West.

“They did one on Michael Jackson, on Prince, on Sachin Tendulkar — they make a pictorial, storytelling around their lives. I’m the only actor they’ve done it on in the world. 

“I don’t think I’m wrong in saying I think I’ve had the maximum books written on me in the past five years. It feels a bit done, but you know, I’m a book reader, and I’m sitting in my library right now. I love books and I have not ever included my family in the work that I do. 

“When it gets over and my kids get interested in learning about what it is I used to do, if there is a written account of that, it would be interesting.”

Coming from Shah Rukh, that is certainly an understatement.