It’s Easy To Work With Aamir Khan Despite His Superstardom: Nitesh Tiwari

I had gone to narrate to him the story of the film 'Dangal.' He didn't let me feel that I was meeting a superstar for the first time. He listened to the entire script for about three and a half hours. Aamir Khan is a friendly person. It was a great experience working with him on the film. When we were writing the story of 'Dangal,' I did not have any specific actor in my mind to portray that character.

I do not write a film keeping an actor in mind. Given the subject on which this film was based, I thought that any big actor might not agree to do it. When my colleagues asked me if I were to choose, who would I like to take? Within a few seconds, I took the name of Aamir Khan.

I felt that only Aamir could do that role since it required a lot of time for preparation to learn wrestling, and gain weight for the character. Aamir had to gain about 30 kg for the role, which was not an easy task. But he pulled it off rather well. A director usually tells the actor that he will have to increase or decrease his weight, etc as per the need of the script, but it is the actor who has to do it. Aamir Khan said that he would gain weight in a scientific manner. Being overweight, his pulse rate, cholesterol, and blood pressure used to be very high or low during the shoot. Still, he played every scene very well on the screen.

Sometimes I think, how can such a big superstar be so comfortable. Aamir followed all the rules of the set. He never complained or asked to change anything. Generally, if an actor says something, we have to do that. But nothing like that happened with Khan. It is very easy to work with him. No one was allowed to carry a mobile phone on the sets, so Khan also used to leave his phone behind. We were shooting on the actual locations, so the arrangements were nothing special for him. Whatever rules the junior artists, co-actors, and technicians followed during the shoot, Aamir Khan did the same. I think every director would like to work with him.

Aamir has over 30 years of experience in the industry. Sometimes where we felt that Aamir should be consulted, we did consult him. He has more experience than ours. Most importantly, what I noticed was that he put in the maximum effort required to play the character. He devoted his entire time to the film. He does only one film at a time, so he could fully focus on his character. He works with complete dedication.

I hope wish and pray that something exciting comes up soon to enable us to work together again. For an actor, is not easy to retain such a large fan-following for three decades. Not just Aamir, all the three Khans – Salman, Shah Rukh, and Aamir -- are able to connect with their audiences well. Their magic continues to cast a spell on the audience. It will increase further on the OTT platform.

I think people understand the difference between watching a movie in a theatre and on mobile phones. So their stardom will continue to grow in the times to come, as all the three Khans have the ability to play all kinds of characters. Another good thing that has happened after the advent of OTT is that other actors are also getting plenty of opportunities. Right now I am working on my upcoming film Ramayan. But the audience will have to wait for some time for it.

(Nitesh Tiwari is the director of Aamir Khan-starrer Dangal (2016). As told to Neeraj Jha)