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CNN Live Event/Special
Interview With Mahira Khan; World Celebrates New Year. Aired 11-11:30a ET
Aired December 31, 2025 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:00:01]
BIJAN HOSSEINI, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: You can hear them screaming. It's a very loud environment. There's rides. There's music. Everyone's having a good time, ready to welcome in 2026.
This year, as I mentioned earlier, will be a bit different, no fireworks, instead, a three-minute light show. And it will take over these buildings behind me. Eight of Hong Kong's main buildings, they will illuminate with the countdown. So we should just be a little under a minute to go.
And I don't know if you guys can hear all the music behind me, but it is loud. It is crazy.
WILL RIPLEY, CNN HOST: Five, four, three, two, one. Happy New Year, Hong Kong.
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN HOST: Happy New Year, Hong Kong.
RIPLEY: And Harbin.
LU STOUT: Harbin and across China. Woo!
(MUSIC)
[11:05:00]
(MUSIC)
RIPLEY: Happy New Year, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, China, spectacular across the board.
LU STOUT: Spectacular scenes across East Asia and Southeast Asia as well, Hong Kong looking so fine tonight with that amazing video display in the Central Business District, Taiwan looking good.
RIPLEY: Taipei 101 looking spectacular as always. They get the fireworks up and down that massive skyscraper.
LU STOUT: And the party continuing in Singapore and in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They love to get loud there.
RIPLEY: Yes.
LU STOUT: And the pyrotechnics. They were going off.
But last, but not least...
RIPLEY: Harbin, China. Oh, please.
LU STOUT: Heilongjiang province, northeastern corner of China.
RIPLEY: Yes.
LU STOUT: Right up there next to the border with Russia. We got to see it. That's where we sent Mike Valerio. We sent him there to experience Siberian frostbite. He is partying by himself.
RIPLEY: His signal is starting to break up.
I wonder if your hardware is starting to freeze, Mike.
LU STOUT: Happy New Year, Mike.
MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's possible.
RIPLEY: Happy New Year.
VALERIO: It's possible. And as soon as we're done -- first of all, yes, happy New Year, Will and Kristie.
As soon as we're done, we're going to throw that tube out of here with hundreds of people. So we're not quite alone. We're just on a balcony with everybody else behind us, but what a fantastic show to be in the biggest winter festival on Earth here in this corner of northeastern China.
This area has about 10 million people. It's a thriving ice metropolis, and they build it here, essentially, this ice festival from scratch. All these beautiful buildings that are set to imitate Chinese icons, architectural icons from across this country are so brilliantly done.
But I am most impressed, Will and Kristie, with people's headwear, cute animals everywhere to keep everybody warm, and just the fact that there are thousands of thousands of people all around us who are partying in negative-25 Celsius, like negative-13 Fahrenheit.
It's pretty astounding, so a great way to start 2026. If you have not made this part of your China travel plans, absolutely do.
Happy New Year, guys. All right, I'll see you very soon.
LU STOUT: Happy New Year, Mike. Stay warm. Happy New Year to you.
RIPLEY: He's thriving in the arctic temperatures.
LU STOUT: He's loving it.
RIPLEY: I'm very impressed.
LU STOUT: It's a frozen fantasy come to life. It's like Minecraft, but with giant ice cubes.
RIPLEY: It's the opposite of Burning Man.
LU STOUT: And he is just living it up.
RIPLEY: Because they're all going to melt. They're all going to melt away.
LU STOUT: OK, go get warm. Happy New Year, my friend.
RIPLEY: Look, he froze. His signal literally froze. I told you his hardware was going to freeze.
LU STOUT: We were waiting for that. He literally froze.
RIPLEY: All right, Bijan.
LU STOUT: So we -- let's go now to Hong Kong.
RIPLEY: Hong Kong.
LU STOUT: Bijan Hosseini is standing by for us.
RIPLEY: Happy New Year, Bijan.
LU STOUT: Bijan, happy 2026 to you, my friend.
HOSSEINI: Happy 2026, Will and Kristie.
The future is off to a good start. There are still so many people down here playing the carnival games, enjoying the music, enjoying the festivities.
Two of those people, Heidi and Samuel, some Hong Kong locals, they walked up here with loads of toy plushies. They probably won every single game down there.
What kind of games are you guys playing down there?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Games, the ball games.
HOSSEINI: The ball games.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Yes, most of them.
HOSSEINI: How has your New Year's Eve been so far?
[11:10:00]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So we are so excited. We have a great time here. Look at this involving the facilities. And the games and all the settings are very stunning. Yes, so we are so happy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) show and especially with her.
(LAUGHTER) HOSSEINI: Spending it together is the best way to spend New Year's.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
HOSSEINI: Samuel, what do you hope to get out of 2026?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
HOSSEINI: Oh, you're giving it -- I asked you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually, the goal is together -- to get a boat license together and achieve the same goal together and get something.
HOSSEINI: Heidi, your turn. That was a pretty good answer. You got to follow up on that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: More or less the same. We want to get a license of driving the boat, so that we can go fishing or go...
(CROSSTALK)
HOSSEINI: Fishing. I love it.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... everywhere.
HOSSEINI: As long as you guys are together. And that's been the theme here, new hopes, new beginnings. It's all about connectedness.
Happy New Year's Eve, Will and Kristie -- back to you all.
RIPLEY: Happy New Year.
LU STOUT: Happy New Year to you.
And, Bijan, it's been so wonderful to have you there in Hong Kong. Enjoy your time in the city. Make sure you get your egg tarts. Make sure you get your dim sum. Make sure you get your roast goose. Enjoy it all, my friend.
RIPLEY: And Bijan is going to go with his wife to Taiwan after this.
LU STOUT: Oh, fantastic.
RIPLEY: So, I'm going to -- we're going to be texting about places to go visit in Taiwan.
Have a great time, Bijan. Great to have you here.
LU STOUT: Happy New Year. Take care.
RIPLEY: Happy New Year.
All right, we have to take a quick break.
Our worldwide New Year's Eve celebration will continue in just a moment. And I am really terrified about what's coming up.
LU STOUT: I'm scared too, because, when we come back, it is going to be Kristie versus Will round two. We got a dance-off. It's happening right here after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:15:58]
LU STOUT: Welcome back to Bangkok and CNN's live celebration of New Year's Eve from every corner of the globe.
RIPLEY: So I have been dreading this segment ever since they came up with the idea. I literally have had nightmares about it.
LU STOUT: Yes, me too.
RIPLEY: We had the lip-synch battle a while ago, so now we're supposed to do a dance-off.
LU STOUT: We're going to do a dance-off. And we're joined by our fellow New Year's Eve revelers.
RIPLEY: Yes, let's...
LU STOUT: Please introduce yourself. What's your name and where are you from?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) I'm from Bangkok.
LU STOUT: Happy New Year.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hanna (ph). I'm from Thailand.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My name is Ying Xia (ph). I come from China.
RIPLEY: Thank you very much for coming up and helping us, because we're going to do a dance. They're going to do it with us. They're going to probably do it better. They're going to do it better than us, I think.
LU STOUT: That's right.
So you better be confident in your dance moves. Are you confident?
RIPLEY: No, actually, frankly, I'm not. I'm terrified.
LU STOUT: I'm not. I'm totally scared, but we got some emotional support here. So...
RIPLEY: How do I -- I'm blocking someone.
(CROSSTALK) LU STOUT: All right, what song are we going to pick? What song?
RIPLEY: Well, we decided on "Gabriela" by Katseye.
LU STOUT: All right, we're going to do it. We're going to do it. All right.
RIPLEY: Yes. But how do I not stand -- can you tell me where I'm standing so I'm not blocking? OK, all right, I'm going to stay here. So I'm not -- all right, you can see everybody.
LU STOUT: All right. All right.
RIPLEY: We don't want to block her. Over this way.
(CROSSTALK)
RIPLEY: We're dancing to this camera now.
LU STOUT: We're dancing to this camera. OK, let's do it.
RIPLEY: We're going to give our mics away. God help us.
(MUSIC)
RIPLEY: I only learned the first 45 seconds. I didn't learn the moving part.
(CROSSTALK)
RIPLEY: Happy New Year.
LU STOUT: Happy New Year. High-five. Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy.
(CROSSTALK)
LU STOUT: Happy New Year.
RIPLEY: I'm going to pretend that did not just happen.
(LAUGHTER)
LU STOUT: That was so much fun. I really enjoyed that.
RIPLEY: Did you?
LU STOUT: Yes.
Will, look, this -- it's all about -- Bijan was talking about uncertainty, right?
RIPLEY: Yes.
LU STOUT: Embracing new challenges, getting out of our comfort zone.
RIPLEY: Yes. LU STOUT: We did the lip-synch battle.
RIPLEY: We did. We did.
LU STOUT: We did a dance-off.
RIPLEY: Yes. And I believe we have a message from Katseye coming up now as well.
LU STOUT: That's right. Let's roll it.
RIPLEY: The real -- from -- helicopter hands. Yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATSEYE: Happy New Year, icons. It's Katseye.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We love you. And thank you so much for such an incredible year. See you soon. Love you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:23:38]
RIPLEY: We are live in Bangkok now, 37 minutes or so away from midnight here and the beginning of 2026. Those are our three backup dancers. They have recovered from the trauma of "Gabriela," dancing with us.
LU STOUT: They have taught us how to dance to Katseye's "Gabriela."
RIPLEY: They schooled us, yes.
LU STOUT: That's right.
RIPLEY: I wish we would have been practicing with them more.
LU STOUT: But the party atmosphere is still happening. As you said, New Year's Eve will begin. Well, it's already begun, but the clock is going to strike midnight in just over 30 minutes. And then, finally, Bangkok will get to join the club...
RIPLEY: Yes.
LU STOUT: ... with Tokyo, with Seoul, with Hong Kong, with Singapore, with Taipei.
RIPLEY: We are ready to party, but, first, we have a very special guest.
LU STOUT: Yes, I had the opportunity to sit down and meet Mahira Khan. She is so cool. She is one of the biggest stars in Pakistan, biggest TV and film stars.
And we talked about her latest movie and her plans for the New Year. So take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MAHIRA KHAN, ACTRESS: Oh, it's been a lot. It's been two film releases. I did not expect to have two film releases, to be honest. And it's been amazing. I mean, this year has been wholesome, to say the least, and a surprise actually.
LU STOUT: And may I ask you a question about Fawad Khan?
KHAN: Yes. Yes, of course.
LU STOUT: Because you have been recently reunited with him on the big screen. He was also on CNN New Year's Eve live a couple of years ago.
[11:25:01]
KHAN: Yes.
LU STOUT: He is such a gentleman. He is a classic leading man.
KHAN: Yes.
LU STOUT: Tell me about your working relationship and how it's evolved over the years.
KHAN: It's a blessing that we have been given so much love and respect and adoration together. People want to see us together. And we have been stingy with that.
But now I think finally, with "Neelofar," we were able to give back to our fans. It's really a -- it's almost a thank you note to them. I think what we have in common is that I think we both are very respectful of each other's spaces and our crafts, you know?
I'm a spontaneous actor. He has another kind of method. And we both understand each other's beats really, really well. And I think that comes with a certain amount of, of course, experience, but also friendship.
LU STOUT: That's really lovely to hear. And it sounds like no doubt you're going to be working together again, reunited again on screen in the future.
KHAN: I think that there's a while for that, because we need to find something really amazing. I mean, so if anyone has something out of the box, I think we need to both do something together which is very out of the box, like "Bonnie and Clyde."
(LAUGHTER)
LU STOUT: That would be so edgy. That would be cool.
KHAN: Or like "Marriage Story." That's what I'd like to see us in.
LU STOUT: What do you have in store for 2026? KHAN: It's been -- going to be 15 years in this industry next year
for me. And...
LU STOUT: Bravo.
KHAN: Yes. And then -- and, at this point, it just feels like one of those points where I feel like I want to take stock of my life, my career, all of it. I'm going back to TV. I'm a little scared about it, but I think that's what's exciting, that something is scaring me, you know?
LU STOUT: No, Mahira, you and I have a California connection.
KHAN: Yes, we do.
LU STOUT: So, I'm from California, and you studied there. You spent time there. Is it true that you used to work at a Brookstone in California? This is like a high-end gadget shop.
(LAUGHTER)
KHAN: Yes, ma'am.
(LAUGHTER)
LU STOUT: What was that like?
KHAN: Oh, my God. I always credit America for all these years that I lived and worked in America is -- there's a huge part of me. And that time for me as a girl from Pakistan who came from not a very rich family, but a well-off family, and then you go and live the American life, which is that you have two jobs, and you go to college, and you're supporting yourself or your brother.
And you're paying for rent. And you don't know if you're going to make it through the week. I think that has had a deep impact on who I am. I actually go back every summer. I take my son back every single summer. And I tell him -- every time, I tell him, look at this big blue bus. I used to take this bus. And then I would go to Rite Aid or I would go to Brookstone, and this is where I used to work.
So, yes, those are very important years of my life.
LU STOUT: Mahira, I love that. I love how you used to work at a Brookstone in Southern California. You used to work at a Rite Aid. This is like a pharmacy.
KHAN: Yes.
LU STOUT: Now you are one of Pakistan's biggest film stars ever, with fans all over the world.
Mahira Khan, thank you so much for joining me and happy New Year.
KHAN: Thank you. Happy New Year to you too. Lots and lots of love.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: So much love and respect for Mahira Khan. She is super humble, incredibly talented. She is recognized all across South Asia and the South Asian diaspora, and yet she started working at a Brookstone in L.A.
RIPLEY: Respect.
LU STOUT: There we go. Total respect.
RIPLEY: That's very cool.
LU STOUT: Total respect. I wish her the very best.
Now, up next, we have got a really special musical performance. I love this group, OK Go.
RIPLEY: Playing "Love" at The Eastern in Hotlanta, Georgia.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(CHEERING)
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
