Aamir Khan is ready for his next act

London, UK (CNN) — In the depths of Covid, Aamir Khan tried walking away from it all. Acting, filmmaking; the business that made him a household name to millions in India and beyond. No more.

The Bollywood megastar, one of India’s highest paid actors, was locked down in 2020 and feeling introspective. “I’d spent all my adult life in this magical world of cinema. And I was so lost in stories and characters and that whole journey that I realized I had not been there for my family,” Khan told CNN during a recent visit to London.

“It was a major moment for me,” he said. “My three kids, two of them already adults, and I pretty much missed their childhoods. All of that really made me feel horrible about myself and how I’d conducted my life.”

“I’m quite an extreme person,” he added, “so I was like, ‘OK, ‘I’m done with films now.’”

Khan still had half a film left to shoot, which had been halted by the pandemic. He told no one of his plans beyond his family, which begs the question: if he kept it secret, did he really retire? “I did,” he insisted. “I used to go to work with my daughter — she runs a nonprofit company working in mental health … Really, I was having a great time.”

Eventually his kids had a quiet word (“We can’t spend 24 hours a day with you, you need to get a life of your own,” as the actor tells it) pushing him back into the arms of Bollywood. And until recently, the rest of the world was none the wiser.

So, though you might not have missed him, Aamir Khan has returned — only this time he’s making sure he’s home for supper.

Khan is busy promoting “Lost Ladies” (“Laapataa Ladies”), which he produced. Directed by Kiran Rao, who is also Khan’s ex-wife, it tells the story of two veiled brides who accidentally go home with the wrong grooms as they travel back from their respective weddings. The light satire, playing on Netflix, is India’s official submission to the Academy Awards and BAFTAs.

The movie features Nitanshi Goel and Pratibha Ranta as brides Phool and Jaya — one young and somewhat naïve, the other ambitious and independent. Phool becomes separated from husband Deepak (Sparsh Shrivastava). He in turn is distraught to learn the other bride Jaya has used the mix-up to flee her own husband, a sinister character who may have killed his first wife, and who refuses to let his second wife further her education.

“The film organically spoke to so many issues that girls go through thanks to deeply entrenched patriarchy and gender roles and the lack of freedoms that women experience in so many parts of the world,” said director Rao.

Khan brought the script to Rao, who set about injecting some laughs. “Humor is one thing that both of us really wanted to bring into the film. It really softens you, and (for) people who otherwise may not be of your point of view, it makes it easier for them to get it,” Khan said. (Using cinema to sway hearts and minds is a subject which Khan returns to often.)

Khan and Rao met on the set of Oscar-nominee “Lagaan” (2001) and were married for 15 years, divorcing in 2021. Clearly still on good terms, theirs is a collaboration that has endured. “I think it starts with the fact that we both really enjoy each other’s minds,” said Rao.

They’re presenting a united front in the lead up to the Oscars, where they hope to break a notable winless streak for the movie-mad nation. India has never been recognized for Best International Feature Film (previously Best Foreign Language Film), and only won its first Academy Award in 2023, when “RRR” walked away with Best Original Song.

Khan is lending considerable clout to the campaign, marking a rare occasion he enters awards season mode. The actor is known for steering clear of such endeavors at home (“You’ll have to come to one of the Indian awards to understand that better,” he quipped) and admits he doesn’t “usually take awards that seriously.” But the Oscars offer something different: “It really opens up many windows for your film … I think as creative people, we really want more and more people to experience what we’ve done.”

The elephant in the room is that more than one film from the subcontinent is eyeing up awards this season. Cannes Grand Prix-winner “All We Imagine as Light” by independent film director Payal Kapadia had been viewed as the lead candidate for Best International Film at the Oscars by some members of the Hollywood commentariat, only for the Film Federation of India (FFI) to choose otherwise. The ensuing bruhaha was only fueled by reported comments from the jury head that Kapadia’s felt like a “European film taking place in India, not an Indian film taking place in India.” But that film can always be submitted for other categories, and not all awards operate by the same submission rules as the Academy.

“It’s a really interesting and exciting moment in Indian cinema when we see two women (making) films that speak about women’s journeys and struggles,” commented Rao. “In fact, both films actually address sisterhood and solidarity among women — and I think that really deserves celebration.”

“There’s much more space for all of us, rather than to pit anyone against the other,” she added.

Three Khans, one screen

Khan’s brief hiatus has prompted new priorities. The actor says he wants to produce more in the next decade, becoming “a platform for young talent.” That doesn’t mean nurturing the next generation of stars, he clarifies. After more than 40 years in the game , he’s still not sure what stardom is.

“We can’t place our finger on it,” said the actor. “Why do people love me and Salman (Khan) and Shah Rukh (Khan)? Why not someone else? What’s is that we have? I have no idea.”

The trio known as the Three Khans have dominated Bollywood for 30 years. And Aamir has an update: the three are finally ready to share a screen.

“Last year we were sitting together and I said, ‘Listen, before we all retire, we have to do one film together otherwise audiences will be really upset with us,’” Khan shared.

“All three of us are looking forward to that,” he added. “All three of us have the responsibility of looking out for this one script that all of us can star in. I’m hoping it happens sometime soon.”

If it does, the movie would be a once-in-a-generation event for Hindi cinema, and a boost for Khan. While Salman and Shah Rukh starred in 2023 action hits “Pathaan” and “Tiger 3,” Aamir’s latest, 2022’s big-budget “Forrest Gump” remake “Laal Singh Chaddha” faltered with audiences, and the actor hasn’t had a hit since 2016 sensation “Dangal” — the first non-English language film to earn more than $300 million at the global box office. (Not that a hit couldn’t necessarily come sooner — Khan has half a dozen films in various stages of production.)

Khan has weathered rough patches before. After his 1988 breakthrough “Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak” “I had a string of flops,” he recalled. “I was being called a one film wonder — and rightly so, I was doing awful work.”

In retrospect, those flops — eight or nine of them, he estimates — were the learning curve he needed. “I realized the hard way that filmmaking is one person’s vision, and that one person is the director,” he explained. “Which director you work with will really determine where your film ends up.”

“I told myself that unless the script, the director and the producer are something I have complete trust in, I’m not going to do a film ever again — even if that means the end of my career. And my career almost ended as a result of that,” he added.

Yes, Khan agrees a movie star can grab a film by the scruff of its neck, “But why would you want to do that?” he said, looking bemused.

“I don’t want to be in a film that’s not appreciated … Also, I don’t like people praising me more than the film. When I’m in a film and someone says, ‘Oh, you were fantastic,’ and he doesn’t talk about the film, I’m like, ‘So the film didn’t work for him.’ For me, the film is most important. I come in much later.”

A leading man under the spotlight

When Khan speaks, people listen. This fact has become a double-edged sword for the actor. Leveraging his leading man status to advocate for various social causes has come with inevitable detractors.

“It’s a tough one,” Khan said, of the responsibilities of using his voice. “I’ve been learning that sometimes you need to speak, and sometimes you don’t.”

The actor says he tries to stay away from the “cacophony” of social media, “where almost anything that you say could be offensive to somebody.”

“Experience has taught me that it’s much better to communicate through a film,” Khan added. “What I want to convey, I can convey through my stories.”

What message to place inside the empathy machine of cinema has become a thorny issue in India. The power of Hindi cinema to sway public opinion has been in the spotlight, with some arguing Bollywood has “veered toward the right” during the rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Though their directors have denied it was their intention, popular films like “The Kerala Story” (2023) and “The Kashmir Files” (2022) have been criticized for perceived Islamophobia.

Khan, a Muslim, who has played Hindus and Sikhs on screen, is a prominent avatar for a religiously pluralistic India.

It was recently the 25th anniversary of “Sarfarosh” (1999) a beloved crime thriller which put the subject in the spotlight. Khan played Ajay, a Hindu police assistant commissioner in Mumbai charged with uncovering a gun-running operation designed to provoke civil unrest in India. Assisting him is steadfast officer Salim, played by Mukesh Rishi, whose allegiances are doubted because of his Muslim faith. Their fractious relationship comes to a head when Salim confronts Ajay, telling him, “Don’t you ever tell any Salim that this country isn’t his.”

“It is still very relevant,” Khan reflected. “I thought ‘Sarfarosh’ was a really lovely script, and I think it was saying such important things — and saying it with so much love and sincerity that it really connected across the board in India.”

“You want society to be inclusive. You don’t want any one section of society to feel insecure or worried, irrespective of where you are in the world, irrespective of which culture you’re talking about,” he added.

Khan is a great believer that what happens in the movie theater doesn’t stay in the movie theater. “Creative people, their fundamental responsibility is to entertain,” he said, “but I don’t think that it ends there for me.”

“You can also provoke (an audience). You can make them think. You can shed light on certain things,” he added. “It’s the creative people in society — the poets, the writers, the performing artists, dancers, painters — who really build the social fabric of any society. What I am today is largely a result of the effects of songs, paintings, poems, books, stories, films. All of that has affected me in some way or the other, and it’s made me who I am.”

It’s a message anyone in the arts can get behind, including, he’ll hope, the Academy. Could “Lost Ladies” go all the way? Competition is stiff, but rule out a good awards season narrative at your peril. However, as Khan has come to appreciate, there’s more to life than awards and films.

“It’s been an interesting journey these last three years, where I’ve come full circle. But now I’m in a much happier space — and I’m glad I didn’t quit.”

“Lost Ladies” (“Laapataa Ladies”) is available to stream on Netflix.

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