special edition of 'Talk Asia' filmed in front of a live studio audience in Mumbai. The programme will be aired first on Wednesday, March 25 at 1800hrs IST and repeat telecast on Saturday, March 28 at 1000hrs and 2000hrs IST. Exclusive excerpts from the interview:
Your most recent film Ghajini is now the biggest Bollywood success ever. Did you have any idea that it would be quite as huge as it is?
You can hope that, you can hope that for all of your films. But you can never really tell until you see the film with the audience, how it's going to play with the audience in the theatre. So I think in Ghajini what we set out to make we were in fact able to achieve that. I realized that I'm making a hardcore mainstream film after really long, which is fine. I guess I'm happy to do that.
In Ghajini, what we were trying to make a hardcore mainstream film was accomplished. After this movie made it so big, people said that you were the real "King Khan". And that you'd kicked Shahrukh off his perch because he appeals to the masses but you've managed to do this thing that loads of actors would love to do. In that you've had both critical and commercial success in spades. How do you do that? How do you stop from being pigeon-holed in one box or another?
Well, you know I just do work which excites me and which I enjoy doing. I just do work which makes me happy. And I have absolutely no intentions of kicking Shahrukh off his pedestal. Though I have to say I don't think he ever was on it. (Audience laughs) but in my opinion the actor who I really look up to is Mr. Bachchan (the elder?) Mr. Amitabh Bachchan. He is someone who's work I really like and he's a fantastic actor and the kind of stardom that Mr. Bachchan has seen none of us can ever hope to see. So for me he's the guy.
Good Lord, I hope thinking and looking at your work out doesn't bring back too many painful memories for you, I mean were there not days you just went "oh for a goodness sake no movie is worth this hell?!"
It was tough, it was really tough, and actually there's a joke in my family and friends, when you want to get Aamir to do something, make a movie around it and he'll end up doing it. So I never thought I would ever train, it's not something I'm in to, but when I had to do it for the film I just went all out, did the best I could. It was really painful and it was really tough and when I look at myself like I was the other day looking at the photographs you know how it began and then what I saw I couldn't believe it, I just couldn't believe. So when I think about it now, it just seems like a distant dream, because in the last eight months I haven't trained, because for the new film that I'm doing, my director looked at my physique and said now I want you to lose all of this. So I had to work towards losing it all for the new film that I'm shooting for.
You're not only a major actor but you also had your directorial debut in Taare Zameen Par. What was it like for you switching to the other side of the camera, at the same time obviously and starring in it?
It was tough, mainly because I wasn't meant to direct the film to begin with. So I kind of jumped in a week into the shoot. I just went with my gut. Actually I didn't even have time to think, quite honestly. And now when I look back I realize that I had reached a point in my career where I had wanted to direct a film for really long, and the pressure kept keeping me away from it. The fact that it happened this way didn't give me a chance to think and decide, you know. I just jumped into it because I had to, and I ended up making the film, you know, to the best of my abilities. So I didn't really, you know maybe if I hadn't done that I wouldn't be directing for the next 10 years more, I don't know. So I guess I'm glad it happened finally because I'm happy with the way the film turned out and I'm happy with the way the kind of impact it had on people.
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