Aamir Khan proved why he remains a force to reckon with in Indian cinema

When Aamir Khan walked onto stage in a simple kurta and jeans to conduct one of his first ever acting masterclasses, he was fidgety. Hundreds poured in, and the room at the ongoing WAVES 2025 was thick with anticipation. India’s cinematic genius was going to drop pearls of wisdom about his craft. But Aamir wasn’t sure. “I’ve never taught acting, I’m not sure if I can,” he modestly said. Almost 40 years since his first film Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988), the master performer sat on that stage as a student, and not a teacher. “I’m still learning,” he said self-effacingly.

He turned 60 in March, and has done much to mould Indian cinema over the last three decades. “I’m in this phase of life where I feel like I’m starting off all over again. Learning classical music, learning about my relationships, learning about myself. I didn’t know so much about who I am, till very recently. I was always so involved in my films, that it’s now that I’m able to take a step back into myself,” he said. For the little boy who slept and woke up with the scent of cinema, thanks to his filmmaker father Tahir Hussain, Aamir confesses to have fallen in love with storytelling as a five-year-old. From the back of a curtain, he would quietly watch writers narrate stories to his father, and would experience a whole gamut of emotions right there. He didn’t know then that it was the seed to becoming an artist who would go on to influence two whole generations of audiences with his craft. “I was a big day dreamer. I would listen to hundreds of stories and create a whole world in my head with my imagination. I think it opens our consciousness to believing that anything is possible. Perhaps why I didn’t think I would fail. Even though I failed so many times,” he said.

Aamir remembers how he almost did not become an actor. “My parents had seen the struggles of being in the industry and they were strictly against their children getting into films. Or for that matter anything that distracted us from academics. I was a state-level tennis player in school, but I had to quit tennis because I failed a couple of subjects then. That’s how strict my father was. Clearly then acting was never an option.  But Shabana Azmi saw me in a short film that I had secretly made with a friend, and insisted that my father watch my performance. Thankfully they saw that I was a decent actor, and I did QSQT and subsequently Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (1992), etc,” he added.

But be it then, or decades later now, Aamir was never just a boy from a film family who happened to become an actor. He was an exceptional force of talent, who spoke directly to the audiences’ hearts. His stardom never superseded his characters, and his relatability was and is his superpower. Be it the unabashed reckless Sanju from Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander (1992), or the impulsive and emotional Munna in Rangeela (1995), or the forthright Bhuvan from Lagaan (2001) or the charmingly ironic Deejay from Rang De Basanti (2006), or the staunch Mahavir Singh Phogat from Dangal (2016) the range and depth of Aamir’s performances could fill up hours of study time in film schools. He wouldn’t just re-imagine himself as these characters, but he would breathe a kind of authenticity within them, which would feel as real as air on the skin. “I was once sitting with Salim-Javed, and Salim saab told me that there are two kinds of actors. An ‘Aashiq’ and a ‘Maashooq’. The former is the kind of actor who falls so in love with his beloved, that he forgets himself. The latter is so in love with himself, that he’d forget the world,” he says. On stage he sits down to demonstrate the simple act of pulling a thread through a needle, and how both these kinds of actors would do it differently. He looks innocent and vulnerable in the first kind, and arrogant and ignorant in the second. All this is conveyed just from body language. The audience watched him enthralled. He then moved onto demonstrating a breathing technique that makes it look like he’s breaking into sobs. He used this to teach Darsheel Safary from Taare Zameen Par, when the eight-year-old confessed to have never cried, right before a crucial crying scene. The room shifted in energy during this demonstration, proving the power of his performance. “Breathing is everything, both in life and in acting. I read the script hundreds of times and I rehearsed the scenes thousands of times for at least three to four months to seep into the character. Until I start walking, talking, thinking, sleeping, dreaming, reacting like my character, I don’t feel like I’m ready,” he adds.

But it wasn’t always this easy or effortless for him. Aamir agrees that his approach to cinema has always been logical and cerebral from the very beginning. An aspect that would often come in his way, especially during films of the 1990s that would often be overridden with emotion. “There’s a scene in Dil (1990) where I break a stool inside a house and set it on fire and I go around it with Madhuri seven times and claim that we are married. I asked my director [Indra Kumar], ‘What about witnesses,’ and he laughed it off. Months later when I watched that film in a single-screen theatre, that scene had the maximum number of claps and whistles. I realised then that not all of Indian cinema runs on logic. I had to often tame that side of me to go through scenes,” he added.

Through his decades in cinema, Aamir has raised the level of cinema in India. Dangal, even today is the highest grossing Indian film internationally, and though the money brings momentum, for Aamir every film is like a life relived. “Filmmaking is a very immersive, yet a very heartbreaking experience.  We are like gypsies. We live the whole film together for six months, and the outside world barely exists for us in that time. And then suddenly once it’s a wrap, we don’t see each other sometimes for 10-15 years. It’s the nature of creating cinema, and it can feel very exhausting. After every film, I feel like I’m done making films. I feel like quitting. I feel empty. I felt it during Lagaan, and I felt it during Sitaare Zameen Par. My friends make fun of me. They anticipate how I’m about to give it all up, but then also predict that I’ll be back in a year with something new. That’s just how it is I guess,” he said.

He’s still a purist, and one who craves to see cinema halls throbbing with laughter and tears and overflowing crowds. But today, he battles new challenges, ones where audiences seem to have moved from cinema halls to phone screens. Aamir compares India with 5,000 movie screens to China that has over 1 lakh screens, and remarks that the potential for growth is immense and as an industry one shouldn’t give up on the theatre experience.  “When I direct a film, it’s a lot more about leadership and taking the whole family together. My responsibility is equal on both fronts, but as a director I feel like there is a lot more riding on my shoulder, and I’m still hopeful that the cinema going experience will stay alive, despite advances in technology,” he said.

For an actor like Aamir, it is really never curtains down. The shy, awkward, over-thinking, hyper-imaginative genius concluded by saying, “For a few years before I gave my first shot as an actor, I would broom the stage, make tea, press clothes as part of being a backstage help during a Gujarati play. I waited patiently for my spotlight and I am so grateful that I got my chance. It’s really about the universe manifesting the best life for you and it’s true in everyone’s case. Acting, writing, music, painting, these are all ways to connect with another individual and to connect within. As long as we are honest about that and open to growth, the joy will never cease.”

As the audience watched him leave, many looked at him with a sense of awe and relatability, “You’re magic, Aamir,” a fan yelled. He smiled, and folded his hands in gratitude.

Aamir KhancontributionDangalIndian cinemaSitaare Zameen ParWAVES 2025Web Exclusive