20 years of Lagaan: Aamir Khan on his father’s bankruptcy: After watching him I had decided to never produce any film

As Ashutosh Gowariker’s Lagaan completes 20 years today, we got in touch with none other than Aamir Khan who to know what all went into the making of this critically acclaimed film. Apart from that, Aamir also opened up about how his father’s financial struggles at production and his almost-bankrupt state made him scared of jumping on the same bandwagon.

Lagaan was considered a very risky film to be made at that time. It was Aamir’s first home production so we asked the actor how was his journey of being a producer over the years and did he really want to become a producer at that time because he has always said that he never wanted to do production. “I come from a film family so I have seen my uncle and father making movies. And my father was a very enthusiastic and a very good producer. But he didn’t know how to do business. So he never ended up making money. And he only had problems. He had made a film Locket, which took eight years to complete. Khoon Ki Pukaar took three years to complete. Making films took a lot of time in those days. He was a big director, ” Aamir shared.

“I had seen him go through a lot of financial crisis. I don’t know how many people know this. He was almost bankrupt. He was almost on the roads, there was a time like that. I was small at that time, and I used to remember that people would usually be calling and asking him to return their money. And he used to keep saying that I have invested all the money in the film and my actors are not giving me dates so I am stuck. This conversation has been going on for 3-4 years. So one day my mother told me that she woke up one day at night she saw my father opening a cupboard and he was searching for something. So my mother asked him what he was looking for. So he said, ‘I am looking for my graduation certificate. My money is all gone and I am going to go bankrupt. So we will be on the roads, we are losing the house, we are losing everything. So now I will have to take another job so I am looking for my graduation certificate.’ So a man in his 40s is saying that he was looking for his certificate. So this was my family’s condition back then,” he added further.

You can check out our entire conversation with Aamir Khan below:

Further revealing how he became a producer by accident, Aamir said, “So I had decided that I will never be a producer. I have become an actor and I won’t go into production. It’s too risky so I never want to produce. If you go through my old interviews, you will see the confidence with which I have said that I will never produce. So I have realised that ‘Never say never’. The moment you say I won’t do this or that, God makes you do that. So as a result I ended up producing. When Ashu (Gowariker) came to me with the script of Lagaan, which I loved, I was thinking who is going to produce this? Which producer will give the resources correctly to make Lagaan? So no one’s name cropped up in my head. Because I used to feel that Ashutosh, at this point while I think he is a good producer, has not given successful films. So any producer would have doubts of such a huge film being helmed by Ashutosh. We would have then asked to compromise on the film. So then I realised that if this film had to be made, since I could not think of any other producer backing us at that time, I said I have to produce it. So I became a producer by accident. I had no intentions of being a producer. Koi mujhe mila nahi toh main producer ban gaya. So that’s how I became a producer. Even at that time, I was thinking let’s do this one film and that would be the last. But what happened is, when I produced Lagaan it made me realise that now I am able to do things the way I want. So if you notice Aamir Khan Production as a producer has been there for 20 years as Lagaan was our first film. Now if you see in these 20 years, other production houses would have normally churned out 3-4 films in a year. Like for example, in 20 years Yash Raj would have made 80 films or Karan would have made 80 films in 20 years. But if you look at my production house, you won’t even find 10 films in 20 years (laughs). We are not a production house that believes in quantity. We as a production house which actually is a boutique house.”

Well, now we know one thing for sure, ‘Never say never’. For more such interesting updates, stay tuned to Bollywood Bubble.

Also Read: Aamir Khan reveals how Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra had expressed concern when they heard about Lagaan