In the depths of Covid, Aamir Khan tried walking away from it all. Acting, filmmaking; the business that made him a household name to millions in India and beyond. No more.
The Bollywood megastar, one of Indiaâs highest paid actors, was locked down in 2020 and feeling introspective. âIâd spent all my adult life in this magical world of cinema. And I was so lost in stories and characters and that whole journey that I realized I had not been there for my family,â Khan told CNN during a recent visit to London.
âIt was a major moment for me,â he said. âMy three kids, two of them already adults, and I pretty much missed their childhoods. All of that really made me feel horrible about myself and how Iâd conducted my life.â
âIâm quite an extreme person,â he added, âso I was like, âOK, âIâm done with films now.ââ
Khan still had half a film left to shoot, which had been halted by the pandemic. He told no one of his plans beyond his family, which begs the question: if he kept it secret, did he really retire? âI did,â he insisted. âI used to go to work with my daughter â she runs a nonprofit company working in mental health ⦠Really, I was having a great time.â
Eventually his kids had a quiet word (âWe canât spend 24 hours a day with you, you need to get a life of your own,â as the actor tells it) pushing him back into the arms of Bollywood. And until recently, the rest of the world was none the wiser.
So, though you might not have missed him, Aamir Khan has returned â only this time heâs making sure heâs home for supper.
Khan is busy promoting âLost Ladiesâ (âLaapataa Ladiesâ), which he produced. Directed by Kiran Rao, who is also Khanâs ex-wife, it tells the story of two veiled brides who accidentally go home with the wrong grooms as they travel back from their respective weddings. The light satire, playing on Netflix, is Indiaâs official submission to the Academy Awards and BAFTAs.
The movie features Nitanshi Goel and Pratibha Ranta as brides Phool and Jaya â one young and somewhat naïve, the other ambitious and independent. Phool becomes separated from husband Deepak (Sparsh Shrivastava). He in turn is distraught to learn the other bride Jaya has used the mix-up to flee her own husband, a sinister character who may have killed his first wife, and who refuses to let his second wife further her education.
âThe film organically spoke to so many issues that girls go through thanks to deeply entrenched patriarchy and gender roles and the lack of freedoms that women experience in so many parts of the world,â said director Rao.
Khan brought the script to Rao, who set about injecting some laughs. âHumor is one thing that both of us really wanted to bring into the film. It really softens you, and (for) people who otherwise may not be of your point of view, it makes it easier for them to get it,â Khan said. (Using cinema to sway hearts and minds is a subject which Khan returns to often.)
Khan and Rao met on the set of Oscar-nominee âLagaanâ (2001) and were married for 15 years, divorcing in 2021. Clearly still on good terms, theirs is a collaboration that has endured. âI think it starts with the fact that we both really enjoy each otherâs minds,â said Rao.
Theyâre presenting a united front in the lead up to the Oscars, where they hope to break a notable winless streak for the movie-mad nation. India has never been recognized for Best International Feature Film (previously Best Foreign Language Film), and only won its first Academy Award in 2023, when âRRRâ walked away with Best Original Song.
Khan is lending considerable clout to the campaign, marking a rare occasion he enters awards season mode. The actor is known for steering clear of such endeavors at home (âYouâll have to come to one of the Indian awards to understand that better,â he quipped) and admits he doesnât âusually take awards that seriously.â But the Oscars offer something different: âIt really opens up many windows for your film ⦠I think as creative people, we really want more and more people to experience what weâve done.â
Kapadia won the Grand Prix at Cannes 2024 for her film about three women and their uneasy relationships with men and the city they call home.
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âAll We Imagine As Lightâ: Payal Kapadia on her love letter to Mumbai and its women
The elephant in the room is that more than one film from the subcontinent is eyeing up awards this season. Cannes Grand Prix-winner âAll We Imagine as Lightâ by independent film director Payal Kapadia had been viewed as the lead candidate for Best International Film at the Oscars by some members of the Hollywood commentariat, only for the Film Federation of India (FFI) to choose otherwise. The ensuing bruhaha was only fueled by reported comments from the jury head that Kapadiaâs felt like a âEuropean film taking place in India, not an Indian film taking place in India.â But that film can always be submitted for other categories, and not all awards operate by the same submission rules as the Academy.
âItâs a really interesting and exciting moment in Indian cinema when we see two women (making) films that speak about womenâs journeys and struggles,â commented Rao. âIn fact, both films actually address sisterhood and solidarity among women â and I think that really deserves celebration.â
âThereâs much more space for all of us, rather than to pit anyone against the other,â she added.
Khanâs brief hiatus has prompted new priorities. The actor says he wants to produce more in the next decade, becoming âa platform for young talent.â That doesnât mean nurturing the next generation of stars, he clarifies. After more than 40 years in the game , heâs still not sure what stardom is.
âWe canât place our finger on it,â said the actor. âWhy do people love me and Salman (Khan) and Shah Rukh (Khan)? Why not someone else? Whatâs is that we have? I have no idea.â
The trio known as the Three Khans have dominated Bollywood for 30 years. And Aamir has an update: the three are finally ready to share a screen.
âLast year we were sitting together and I said, âListen, before we all retire, we have to do one film together otherwise audiences will be really upset with us,ââ Khan shared.
âAll three of us are looking forward to that,â he added. âAll three of us have the responsibility of looking out for this one script that all of us can star in. Iâm hoping it happens sometime soon.â
If it does, the movie would be a once-in-a-generation event for Hindi cinema, and a boost for Khan. While Salman and Shah Rukh starred in 2023 action hits âPathaanâ and âTiger 3,â Aamirâs latest, 2022âs big-budget âForrest Gumpâ remake âLaal Singh Chaddhaâ faltered with audiences, and the actor hasnât had a hit since 2016 sensation âDangalâ â the first non-English language film to earn more than $300 million at the global box office. (Not that a hit couldnât necessarily come sooner â Khan has half a dozen films in various stages of production.)
Khan has weathered rough patches before. After his 1988 breakthrough âQayamat Se Qayamat Takâ âI had a string of flops,â he recalled. âI was being called a one film wonder â and rightly so, I was doing awful work.â
In retrospect, those flops â eight or nine of them, he estimates â were the learning curve he needed. âI realized the hard way that filmmaking is one personâs vision, and that one person is the director,â he explained. âWhich director you work with will really determine where your film ends up.â
âI told myself that unless the script, the director and the producer are something I have complete trust in, Iâm not going to do a film ever again â even if that means the end of my career. And my career almost ended as a result of that,â he added.
Yes, Khan agrees a movie star can grab a film by the scruff of its neck, âBut why would you want to do that?â he said, looking bemused.
âI donât want to be in a film thatâs not appreciated ⦠Also, I donât like people praising me more than the film. When Iâm in a film and someone says, âOh, you were fantastic,â and he doesnât talk about the film, Iâm like, âSo the film didnât work for him.â For me, the film is most important. I come in much later.â
When Khan speaks, people listen. This fact has become a double-edged sword for the actor. Leveraging his leading man status to advocate for various social causes has come with inevitable detractors.
âItâs a tough one,â Khan said, of the responsibilities of using his voice. âIâve been learning that sometimes you need to speak, and sometimes you donât.â
The actor says he tries to stay away from the âcacophonyâ of social media, âwhere almost anything that you say could be offensive to somebody.â
âExperience has taught me that itâs much better to communicate through a film,â Khan added. âWhat I want to convey, I can convey through my stories.â
What message to place inside the empathy machine of cinema has become a thorny issue in India. The power of Hindi cinema to sway public opinion has been in the spotlight, with some arguing Bollywood has âveered toward the rightâ during the rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Though their directors have denied it was their intention, popular films like âThe Kerala Storyâ (2023) and âThe Kashmir Filesâ (2022) have been criticized for perceived Islamophobia.
Khan, a Muslim, who has played Hindus and Sikhs on screen, is a prominent avatar for a religiously pluralistic India.
It was recently the 25th anniversary of âSarfaroshâ (1999) a beloved crime thriller which put the subject in the spotlight. Khan played Ajay, a Hindu police assistant commissioner in Mumbai charged with uncovering a gun-running operation designed to provoke civil unrest in India. Assisting him is steadfast officer Salim, played by Mukesh Rishi, whose allegiances are doubted because of his Muslim faith. Their fractious relationship comes to a head when Salim confronts Ajay, telling him, âDonât you ever tell any Salim that this country isnât his.â
âIt is still very relevant,â Khan reflected. âI thought âSarfaroshâ was a really lovely script, and I think it was saying such important things â and saying it with so much love and sincerity that it really connected across the board in India.â
âYou want society to be inclusive. You donât want any one section of society to feel insecure or worried, irrespective of where you are in the world, irrespective of which culture youâre talking about,â he added.
Khan is a great believer that what happens in the movie theater doesnât stay in the movie theater. âCreative people, their fundamental responsibility is to entertain,â he said, âbut I donât think that it ends there for me.â
âYou can also provoke (an audience). You can make them think. You can shed light on certain things,â he added. âItâs the creative people in society â the poets, the writers, the performing artists, dancers, painters â who really build the social fabric of any society. What I am today is largely a result of the effects of songs, paintings, poems, books, stories, films. All of that has affected me in some way or the other, and itâs made me who I am.â
Itâs a message anyone in the arts can get behind, including, heâll hope, the Academy. Could âLost Ladiesâ go all the way? Competition is stiff, but rule out a good awards season narrative at your peril. However, as Khan has come to appreciate, thereâs more to life than awards and films.
âItâs been an interesting journey these last three years, where Iâve come full circle. But now Iâm in a much happier space â and Iâm glad I didnât quit.â
âLost Ladiesâ (âLaapataa Ladiesâ) is available to stream on Netflix.