I am not even competing with Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan, says Aamir Khan

While his contemporaries – Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan -- will have two releases this year, Aamir Khan's next release will come two years after his last release. His thought: Let them do two films in one year. I will do one film in two years. But that's not surprising. That's how Aamir is, he follows his own path. The actor, who recently turned 50, discusses why he won't do what everyone else is doing, why he needs to get back into nine per cent body fat for Dangal. And remembers the incident that changed his professional life forever.

Tell me about your next release Dangal?

It's written and directed by Nitesh Tiwari, a writer-director who has done Bhoothnath Returns and was the co-director along with Vikas Bahl on Chillar Party.

Have you seen these films?

No, I have not seen either actually. I loved the script and the manner that he narrated it. I could see that he has visualized it. What I have seen of his work is he has made these the latest KBC campaign. He also wrote those films and he directed those films and those impressed me.

Dangal is based on a true story?

Based on, but it's not strictly that. It is dramatised.

Are the kind of films being offered to you now, different from the ones you were offered a decade ago?

I am happy with the films I am being offered, but I talk about the films I am not doing. Are the films offered to me different from what I was being offered back then? Not really, no. They're pretty much the same actually. The same means that there are a good mix of things that are offered to me. Dangal is very unusual. Some of them are very mainstream.

Both SRK and Salman are now doing two films in a year. What are the chances we will see Aamir Khan doing that?

Unlikely. I mean I did shoot Dhoom 3 and PK simultaneously for a bit, but that was because I couldn't manage it any other way. It was not meant to be that way. It happened that way. But I don't think I will do that again. I mean Dangal is taking me two years to make. I am doing prep for six months. I am learning Haryanvi, I am learning wrestling. The next six months that's all I am doing; getting ready for the role. I become the character...

Maybe if you do two small films, you can probably do two films in a year as well?

I do small films also. Taare Zameen Par was a small film. So was Dhobi Ghat. They didn't have that kind of scale. I don't think the scale of the film really changes, or the number of days; not for me. The amount of effort that goes into a film is identical, whether it's a small film, big film, expensive film, not so expensive film. The effort is the same. Time taken is the same.

But your contemporaries will have so many more films in their filmography as compared to you. That doesn't worry you?

No, no I am not worried. The quantity has never impressed me. I have never gone for quantity. What excites me is the journey that I live through while I am doing the film. Like PK came out in December of 2014. My next release which is Dangal will be December 2016, two years later. So instead of two films in one year, I am doing one film in two years. I don't know how to work faster. See, now for Dangal, I explained it to you. I am putting on weight, I can't play any other role in that. Suppose another film is offered to me, I might have to lose weight for that and I have to do both together. I can't.
As for comparisons... actually, I am not competing with Shah Rukh or with Salman or anyone. The fact of the matter is that I don't think we are playing in the same stadium. Like the kind of films I choose are very different from the kind of films Salman chooses or from the kind of films Shah Rukh chooses. I am not being qualitative about it, I am just saying that that's not my kind of cinema. I can't get myself to do that.

Shah Rukh has the classes and Salman has his masses. what do you have?

(Smiles) I hope I have both. I don't think about this, I like to challenge myself and I like to challenge my audience. I like to surprise myself and I like to surprise my audience. So I have not followed any set pattern, I have not got any image. I want to do work that excites me. Each time it is something new and different, I can't do the same thing again and again, it's too boring for me. Each one is different, so I am not even competing with Shah Rukh and Salman. I don't think we even belong in the same space, if you ask me.

Do you know what you will do post Dangal?

No I don't. I don't have a film lined up.

What if someone came to you with a good script right now?

I won't read it because I don't want to be distracted by anything, I am very decided about this. I am happy doing what I am doing, why to waste time.

But what if the script is amazing? You can always lock it now and do it later. Because later if might not be available to you.

Sometimes, that happens.. Occasionally I listen to scripts suddenly when I feel like it. But by and large, once I have got a script – like Dangal right now -- I will not listen to other scripts, I am very clear about that. I might start listening to scripts sometimes in January because we start shooting in September. September-December four months we shoot. Then I have to lose weight.

Wouldn't it have been easier to shoot those portions now and then gain weight?

I prefer to do it the other way round. I have four months in which to get to nine percent body fat. Again come back to nine percent, how I was in Dhoom 3, that's the look. So that's the other part of the look. So I'll shoot that in May. It will take me four months, January-April to get into shape. So in that thing of getting into shape and losing weight, I can't shoot at that time. That's when I hear scripts, read scripts to plan for the future.

You drastically change your looks for each of your films. Do you consciously choose scripts that need you to alter your appearance and body type?

I mean, my head doesn't work that way. So I am finding it difficult to answer this question... I am not an actor who thinks of what I want to do. It never occurs to me what I want to do. In fact, I have no plans whether I want to do an action film now or comedy, I have no such feeling in me. I believe that films have to happen organically. The organic way is the way a writer thinks of what he wants to say and a story comes out there. Then a director gets involved with it. Sometimes, the director is also the writer and I come in afterwards when the casting is happening and when I experience what the writer and the director have in mind, that either excites me or it doesn't. When it excites me, I do the film and I go into a new space. I could have never thought of Dangal. I never thought of Lagaan, I didn't think of Dil Chahata Hai, I didn't think of 3 Idiots, I didn't think of Taare Zameen Par. These are all films that came out of different people's minds and I got attached to them because I got excited about it. That entire new window suddenly opens for me and I don't know from where it's going to open. That's my excitement. I don't think what I can do, I don't think like that. I just want to do films that I enjoy doing, that I feel excited about.

Well, you are in the position to do that now.

I am getting to that. I am really grateful for the kind of freedom I have enjoyed in doing the kind of work I believe in and the work that I want to do. I have also fought for that, but I have to also accept that are forces which are much larger at play that I actually can't control. So while I have fought for that freedom, at the same I have had the privilege of having that freedom which I am very grateful for. Not everybody has that privilege.

You have earned that privilege.

No, that's a different matter. I am saying that from the beginning... Okay I'll take you back a little bit because that was the turning point in my life. See my first film Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak released in early 1988 and it became a big hit. So within the next few months, I signed eight or nine films and when the shooting of those films began and some months passed, I realised what a mess I had got myself into. I was very unhappy with the kind of work that I was doing. I was working with people whose sensibility was very different from mine. I am not saying that it was good or bad, but I was very unhappy. I used to come home and cry. I am not exaggerating and I used to wonder what am I doing, this is not what I had planned. This is not what I had wanted. But that was also a learning experience for me. That was when my foundation was being built. That was my realisation coming from a lack of experience quickly turning into an experience. Then these films began releasing and they started bombing and the media called me a one-film wonder and rightly so. In all fairness, they weren't wrong. It was then that I knew my following films to come were even worse...

Please continue...

So I realised the situation I was in and that I was already unhappy about doing those films. I was in a jam and at that time I swore to myself that no matter what, I was never going to do a film unless I am really happy even if it wipes me out of the industry. I still make mistakes. Films are difficult to make. Sometimes, you start with something in mind and you end up somewhere else. But I am going to be very excited and happy otherwise I am not doing the film. Anyway, my career was at its worst at that time and my films were flopping. I felt I was in quicksand, I could see myself drowning in it slowly. I was sinking and there was nothing I could do to stop it. On the one hand, I had decided I was not going to sign films, I was going to finish these, and by the time those got over, I'd have no offers, so at that time some very important thing happened.

What was that?

I got a call from Bhatt Saab. He said 'I have a script for you.' I got maha excited and I said, 'Thank God.' See Bhatt Saab was his peak that time. Saransh, Arth, Naam all these films had just released. So when he called me, I said, 'Thank God this is the one thing I needed to save myself.' Just the announcement that I am doing a film with Bhatt Saab would give me a new lease of life. I can absorb another four flops. So I went to meet him and he narrated the script to me. And I didn't like it. I was devastated. I asked Bhatt Saab, 'Can I sleep over it?'. He said, 'Ya, ya, think about it, we'll meet tomorrow evening.' So the next evening I went to meet him. So I went home and I was like, 'What should I do?' My logic and my practical side was telling me do the film, so what if I didn't like the script? Just do it because that one announcement will give your career a lease of life and then you can do other stuff that you like. But I didn't want to break the promise that I had made to myself which was I am not going to do a film unless I was happy with it. So do I save my career, do I follow my heart? Anyway I went back to him the next day and I said 'I am really sorry Bhatt Saab, but I can't do the film. I have to be honest with you, I didn't like the script and who am I to tell you what a good script is and what is not. But if I am not excited, I can't do it, that's all I have to say and probably after this you won't work with me. But that's the honest truth and maybe I am making a big error right now but I have to be true to myself.' It was very difficult for me to say that because I had seen my career disappearing in front of me. He was very sweet. He said "No, no, don't worry, if you don't feel like doing it, you should not do it ". Later on, we went on to do "Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahi". But what I am trying to say is that that was the turning point in my life. If I had compromised that day, my career would have been something else. I would have constantly been compromising. When at my worst, I held on to my dream. I was honest to myself, I didn't compromise with what my heart wanted. At my worst, I did that. Later on, that one decision gave me so much strength that it made me feel that 'Chalo, I may not have a career after this, I don't know what's in store for me. But at least now I am finally living and working the way I want to. I am not doing something that I am not happy with.'
Thereafter, I have done films which I wanted to do. I may have still made mistakes. I may have still done films that have not turned out that well. But from then onwards to now, I have done films that I have believed in.