Stardom & Seats

Aamir believes there are many yardsticks for measuring how popular a star is; a key one is copying the star’s style. He narrates how, when Amitabh Bachchan became a huge star, the young Aamir had wanted to get bell-bottoms made like his! His own definition of stardom boils down simply to how many seats an actor can fill. That is a true sign of how much people love an actor and his work, and their desire to experience it. Measuring an actor’s stardom on the basis of his commercial success alone is not right, he feels.

Alluding to his own films, PK or Dangal, he points out that the business they generated had everything to do with how great they were as films, as scripts; their success was not a product of his stardom. He maintains that the litmus test of his stardom would come if and when audiences came in to watch a genuinely bad film of his, solely on the basis of his name.

Wise Economics 

For one who claims he is not good with money, his sense of the movie business is faultless. Commenting on studios forking out big bucks assuming the highest possible returns – and going bust in the bargain, he states that the trend is plain bad business. A studio cannot live on hope, he points out, it needs investment on surety.

This is one reason he plays it very carefully when making a film. In fact, he works in a way that does not include his acting fee. The entire amount of money is invested in the making of the film and in paying the fees of the rest of the cast and crew. As the returns come in, they go towards recovering the costs of the print and advertising promotion. If the film goes down under, he ends up with nothing. But it’s a risk he would rather shoulder himself. And therein lies the power of a pocket dynamo named Aamir Khan!