When Raj Kumar Hirani and Aamir Khan came together for the first time in 2009 with the release of 3 Idiots they managed to break all box office records. Five years later Hirani and Khan are back in the spotlight with the highly anticipated PK, a movie which managed to shock the whole of India when its first poster featuring a naked Aamir with just a transistor around his neck was released. Who is PK? Where is he from? What does he do? No other Bollywood film in recent times has probably garnered as much curiosity as PK.

City Times was the exclusive media presence from the region at a round table conference hosted by Aamir Khan in Mumbai last week.

Over the course of two and a half hours, the actor gave us rare insights on PK, his co-star Sanjay Dutt, his blockbuster television show Satyamev Jayate, his wife Kiran Rao and also revealed that 90 per cent of Bollywood producers mislead the public with fudged figures of box office collections. Excerpts from the interview:

When you see the film, you will realise the importance because it is a moment from the film which is a very integral part of the story. What you saw in the poster is part of a scene; we haven’t done a separate photo shoot; so that one image forms our key art for the film. Why am I not wearing clothes? For that you will have to see the film.

I do not like to reveal some of the key things of the film. What my character is, is one of the key things of the film. So there are lots of speculations. Some people feel I am an alien, some feel that I am an alcoholic, some people feel that I have lost my memory; various theories are going around. We do not want to deny or accept any theory because we prefer that you see the film and enjoy it more that way.

I do not think about records or figures. But you need to know that about 90 per cent of the producers are lying and fudging the figures that they give out because they want people to think that their film is a big success. There are only a handful of producers who insist on giving real figures. The general pubic is unaware of this. Yes numbers do indicate how much people love your films but that is not always true. You can’t use numbers as a yardstick all the time.

At the end of one of Raju’s letters, Sanjay wrote a note for me, which Raju sent to me and I have just written a letter to Sanju actually, which I am sending to him today (last Tuesday). It was a real pleasure working with him and I really bonded with him. I have been a big fan of Sanju and always looked up to him. He has got this quality of being very strong and vulnerable at the same time and that’s part of his personality. He is like a big bear but you feel like protecting him. It is a strange feeling he evokes at least in me and I always felt that as an audience. He is a warm and loving guy.

It is not a conscious effort. The reason I do one film a year is because I cannot do more. I do not know how to do more. When I started my career people were doing thirty-forty films at one time, I signed about 8-9 films and I was aghast because I had no idea how to do eight films at a time. So I was not enjoying my work, so as soon as I could I reduced my number and I came down to one film at a time and that is how I enjoy working because I get engrossed in the story and the character. It is like when you go to a handloom worker’s house, where they have their own handlooms. Once they put the thread on, until they finish the piece that they are making, they cannot put anything else on it. You finish that and then make another piece. So I am like that handloom worker.

I do not know whether there is an effect, it is very difficult to measure that. When I was doing the show, a lot of people told me ‘Don’t do this show because there will be an adverse effect on your films as you are picking up very sensitive topics and showing a mirror to society that we sometimes do not want to see and you may rub people the wrong way.’ For example when we take a subject like marriage in India and speak about dowry - roughly, I don’t know about 90 per cent of Indian families would have either given or taken dowry. The television that they are watching the show on is probably received as part of the dowry, so now I am telling them that dowry is not a good thing. So I am telling 90 per cent of my audience that what you are doing is not right, that may not go down well with them. So people suggested to me that since I am a popular star, I should not mess with my popularity but I did not even consider any of those things. The reason I was doing that show was not connected to any of these things and I felt that it was something I really wanted to do. When I really want to do something I do not think of the consequences, I feel that we will figure out as we go along. A lot of people also feel that it has had a good impact on many people, so therefore your audience may have come closer to you. I do not know whether that translates into ticket sales. Is there a way to calculate whether there has been a change? I don’t know. But as a human being I feel I am closer to people and the realities of my country and what people go through, having experienced it closely.

No, I will never. The reason I do not want to go into politics is because it does not excite me. I feel I am very happy in the space that I am in and also in the profession that I am in. I think politics is not a space that I am comfortable in. I also feel that a person enters politics to help society, I think I can do that very well from where I am, I do not need to enter politics for that. I believe that the responsibility of a creative person goes beyond just entertaining people and our job is to bring grace and strengthen the social fabric of the society, infuse value into people and children and touch the good in people. The path that I am taking is perhaps a longer path because through shows like Satyamev Jayate or films like Taarein Zameen Par or 3 Idiots, with each film or each show you are impacting people and the way they feel and think and look at something.

Unfortunately in our society, the moment anyone does something, ‘why he is doing it’ becomes more important; ‘what he is doing’ becomes irrelevant after a point. When you continue doing it, people say ‘Oh I know why he is doing it. He wants to enter politics.’ Then they realise, five years has gone by and he has not entered politics, he is still doing this, then you realise maybe he was never interested.

PK is also that kind of a film. Personally I never sign or pick up a film project with the intention of making something, which is socially relevant. So I am not like what is the next topic I can make a film on, that is not how I approach it. I am not looking for films with social messages – Delhi Belly, Dhoom 3, Ghajini did not have any social messages. When I am selecting a film, I do not look for commerce but I go for what appeals to me.

Films do not always come to me first. I think 3 Idiots had also gone to Shah Rukh, if I am not mistaken, before it came to me. (Corrects himself) Munnabhai went to Shah Rukh, sorry. Let me give some examples – Amole Gupte had written the script of Taarein Zameen Par and he was very keen that Akshaye Khanna acts in the film. So Amol told me he wants me to set up his meeting with Akshaye for script narration. So I said, ‘How can I recommend your script, when I have not heard it myself? What if it’s a bad script? I can only recommend if I like it?’ It took time because I was busy, so after a year I pulled out time and when I heard the script, I fell in love with it, so I said, ‘Amole, I can still pick up the phone and call Akshaye and gladly recommend this film. But I have just one question, why do you want to go to Akshaye and why can’t I play that character?’ . So it was not meant for me, it was meant for Akshaye but since Amole is a friend, I offered my services to him. Farhan offered Dil Chahta Hai to various people. Lagaan went to the entire industry and every actor turned it down. When I am selecting a film, I go by my heart, I do not look for figures. I will give an example of Talaash. That film is very close to my heart, when Reema Kagti narrated that script to me I loved it and that is why I did the film. Even when I was signing the film, I was aware that it is not a 100 crore film, I was aware that it is not a mainstream film like Dhoom 3 but that did not stop me from saying yes to her.

The shift happened when I became a producer. I would tell my producer in the 90s, ‘Why can I shoot your film at one go?’ No producer or director thought that it was possible because our films are musical, our songs have different locations, so they were like, ‘We cannot plan so much in one schedule.’ Then I did that in Lagaan and showed the industry that this is how you do it in one go. Dil Chahta Hai followed the same system. I told my directors you are wasting my time and making me act twice. First I am acting on sets and then six months later in the dubbing room, I said we have to use sync sound. But everyone said it is not possible in India. I remember I was going outdoors for Lagaan and just one month before that I went for a party where I met Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar and they both sat me down and said, ‘You are making a big mistake, don’t do one schedule thing, you will fall flat on your face, we are your friends and hence want well for you; don’t do sync sounds, you will regret it.’ Today, they are both doing sync sounds and one-schedule films.

Arti Dani (Sub Editor/Reporter), arti@khaleejtimes.com