Aamir Khan broke down onstage at the Singapore International Film Festival on Thursday as he recalled realizing, during the COVID-19 lockdown, that three decades of nonstop work had cost him years with his family.
The Bollywood superstar, who was handed the festival’s Screen Icon Award by Hong Kong director Peter Chan Ho-sun, also shed light on sequels to “3 Idiots” and “Andaz Apna Apna” during a wide-ranging in-conversation session moderated by Singapore comedian Rishi Budhrani.
The emotional moment came late in the evening, when Khan was asked about the weakest point of his journey. He described himself as a lifelong workaholic who ate, slept and dreamed films, and said his family had always been understanding enough to leave him alone.
“When I was sitting in COVID and I was thinking, I said, you know, about 30 years have passed of my life. And it’s okay to work like a madman, completely obsessed with what you’re doing for one year, two years, five years. But if it goes on for 30 years, I mean, you’ve lost your relationships. Your kids have grown up, they’re adults now. So I felt a deep sense of loss,” Khan said.
He paused, broke down, apologized and gathered himself as the audience broke into applause. An audience member handed him a box of tissues.
Khan, wiping his tears away, said the experience pushed him to make a major change, and that for the last four years he has deliberately carved out time for his family and close friends. “I’m so glad that this thought occurred to me when I was 56 and not when I was 86, when it would be really too late to do anything about it,” he said.
On a lighter note, Khan was asked whether a sequel to “3 Idiots,” the 2009 campus comedy directed by Rajkumar Hirani, is in the works.
“Well, I’m not allowed to say a lot,” Khan said. “I think I can say this much, that yes, Raju is working on the script. In fact, hopefully once I’m back in the next couple of weeks, he’s going to narrate the final version to me. So, fingers crossed.”
According to Budhrani, Khan had phoned Hirani in front of him the previous day to check whether he could share the news, and the filmmaker gave his blessing – though Hirani didn’t pick up the first time, as Khan had changed his number. Khan said he had shut his phone a few weeks earlier and is now off all apps, having found that scrolling could swallow three hours at a stretch.
With many fans having shouted out their love for Rajkumar Santoshi’s 1994 cult comedy “Andaz Apna Apna,” Khan was asked whether a sequel is on the cards. “Well, I know that Raj Santoshi is working on something,” he said. “So let’s see what happens.” Asked if there was anything more, he replied: “Yeah, that’s all.”
In the same answer about his weakest moments, Khan recounted an earlier low point from the start of his career. After his 1988 debut “Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak” became a hit, he signed nine films within six months, reasoning that if established stars could juggle dozens of projects, he could handle 10. Once shooting began, he realized his mistake and would come home and weep to his then-wife Reena. The films then flopped one after another, and he was branded a “one-film wonder.”
“At that time, mentally and emotionally, I felt like I’m in quicksand. I’m sinking slowly, and the more I’m struggling to get out, the deeper I’m going,” Khan said.
At that point, Mahesh Bhatt, then riding high on “Saaransh,” “Arth” and “Naam,” offered him a film. Khan had vowed to commit only when he loved the script, the director and the producer, and he didn’t like the script. After a sleepless night, he turned Bhatt down. “If I had compromised with that and I had been practical, and I had, you know, said, ‘Yes, sir, I’m doing the film,’ I think my entire career would have been a series of compromises,” he said. They would go on to work together in “Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin” and “Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke.”
Accepting the Screen Icon Award, Khan thanked the festival and said that having Chan present it made the moment special. “Filmmaking is a collective art form, and a lot of people contribute to each other’s work,” he said.
Asked why his films have resonated in China, Khan said “3 Idiots” took off there and across the wider region east of India after young viewers began passing it around, prompting them to seek out his other work. “I mean, it’s the truth. For me, my popularity in China is thanks to piracy,” he said, while stressing that he is not an advocate of it. He attributed the deeper connection to what he called a shared “emotional key” between Indian and Chinese audiences, recalling that watching “Dangal” in a Chinese theater felt like watching it in India.
Khan also revealed that he holds 50 to 60 test screenings of 25 people each for his films, and that the first test screening of “Taare Zameen Par” was a disaster. For smaller films whose budgets can’t absorb his usual fee, he said he skips the fee and takes a back end instead, so the producer is protected if the film doesn’t work.
On artificial intelligence, Khan said he views it as another filmmaking tool, much like VFX, and pointed to a castle set that would once have required 200 carpenters to build. “My common sense is telling me that in the short term, for sure, people are going to lose jobs,” he said.
Khan, who last attended the festival nine years ago with “Secret Superstar,” also has a 25th anniversary screening of “Lagaan,” his first film as producer, lined up at the festival on Friday.