Aamir Khan is known to commit to his roles fully and take up only one film in a couple of years. His dedication to getting his roles right to every minute detail has earned him the moniker of Mr Perfectionist. After his blockbuster ‘Dangal,’ his next two projects- ‘Thugs of Hindostan’ and ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ failed at the box office. Recently, the actor revealed how the failure of both titles affected him. Aamir revealed that he went into a ‘depressive state’ after ‘Laal Singh Chadha’ did not perform well.
Recently, at an ABP event, Aamir Khan talked about his last two projects failing at the box office. “I was very sad. I am a very emotional person. Thugs of Hindostan might have been a weak film. I believe we weren’t able to achieve what we had set out to do.” Continuing, he said, that translating the script to screen sometimes comes with several challenges. “Filmmaking is a difficult medium; so, sometimes, we might end up not being able to make what we want to.”
Talking about ‘Laal Singh Chaddha,’ he said, “I think my performance was a pitch too high. That film relied completely on the lead actor’s performance. Remember how great a job Tom Hanks did in the original film? He just took you on a ride. I wasn’t able to do that.” For the unversed, ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ is a remake of the Hollywood blockbuster, ‘Forest Gump.’
Aamir also revealed that the film pushed him into depression. “When one of my films doesn’t perform well, I go into depression and cry for two to three weeks. It’s important to mourn. Once that phase is over, I call over the entire team to analyse what went wrong so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes. I really value my failures and go deep into them, trying to understand what all went wrong.”
As the conversation progressed, the actor also revealed that his family was there for him during the tough times. “In the case of Thugs of Hindostan, my family knew beforehand that I wasn’t fully impressed by it. But with Laal Singh Chaddha, they knew how deeply involved and emotionally invested I was. So, when it flopped, they checked in on me frequently. Junaid would sometimes drop by in the evening to see how I was doing, and at other times, it would be Ira. Even Reena, Kiran and my mother started reaching out to me more often. In fact, at one point, I (jokingly) thought that if I got this much attention every time a film flopped, maybe I should have had a few more failures.”
Also Read: Shah Rukh Khan backed ‘Ittefaq’ without even reading the script
Meanwhile, ‘Laal Singh Chaddha,’ emerged as a box office dud, grossing only around 129 crores worldwide against its budget of 180 crores. It received mixed reviews, with some lauding the performances and the film for being true to the source material. However, others criticised the storytelling and pacing of the film.