Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan may be one of the most respected actors today, but his journey to the top wasn’t as smooth as it seems. Looking back at the early days of his career, Aamir revealed that success came fast—but so did the mistakes.
At a recent event with legendary lyricist-writer Javed Akhtar, Aamir opened up about the chaos that followed his overnight stardom after ‘Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak’ (1988). While the film made him the heartthrob of the nation, it also brought an avalanche of film offers—almost 300 to 400 of them!
Like many newcomers, he didn’t fully understand the weight of his choices and ended up signing around 9-10 films at once.
“Back then, actors worked on multiple films at the same time. The norm was handling 30-50 films simultaneously. Even Anil Kapoor, who was known for being selective, had 33 films in hand! Seeing that, I thought signing 9-10 films was a wise decision. But none of the directors I had dreamt of working with approached me. And when I finally started shooting, I realized I had made a terrible mistake,” Aamir admitted.
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Juggling three shifts a day, Aamir found himself overwhelmed, exhausted, and deeply unhappy. “I would go home and cry,” he shared.
Unfortunately, his fears soon turned into reality. A string of his films, including ‘Love Love Love’, ‘Awwal Number’, and ‘Tum Mere Ho’, bombed at the box office. The media quickly branded him a “one-film wonder,” and Aamir Khan admitted that he couldn’t argue with the label.
“The truth is, they were right. I was certain that not only had my recent films failed, but my next six were bound to be disasters because they were even worse. I could see my career crumbling, and I felt completely stuck,” he confessed.
But as history shows, Aamir turned things around. Instead of giving in to the pressure, he made a conscious decision to be extremely selective with his roles—something that would later earn him the title of ‘Mr. Perfectionist’. The rest, as they say, is history!