20 Years of Lagaan: Aamir Khan says Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar had advised him not to take this big risk, reveals how it changed him as an actor

It has been 20 years since Aamir Khan starrer Lagaan: Once Upon A Time In India had released. Even after so many years, it has managed to stay relevant. This has also been the first film under the banner of Aamir Khan Productions and the first film which was produced by the actor. During a press con, the actor revealed how the experience of producing a film changed him as an actor and how producers Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar had advised him to not take the risk of producing such a huge film.

During a virtual meeting with the press, Aamir Khan said, “When I had decided to make Lagaan, I knew I was taking on a huge challenge because it’s a very unusual film, very demanding. Just a few weeks before I left for shooting, I met with Adi Chopra and Karan Johar. They are very good friends of mine and they were genuinely concerned. They said, ‘You are making such a big film as your first production, shooting in a single schedule and using sync sound. Shoot for 30 days, and see how it turns out. Don’t go single schedule, you’ll have no time to correct your mistakes. Don’t do sync sound, because no one has done it for the longest time. It will delay your shooting. Get dialogues dubbed later, be sensible.’”

But Aamir Khan ended up doing what he wanted to do and went on with his gut feeling. He said, “I had actually wanted to do sync sound and single schedule shooting for at least five years before that. I had been telling directors since 1995 to do sync sound because the emotion that I was creating while shooting was being wasted, and then I had to recreate that same emotion while dubbing. These were things I had always wanted to try as an actor and my producers would not listen to me. They were not confident of doing it. So when I became producer, I said main toh karunga. I brought in the single schedule shoot, sync sound and also the first AD system.” It was Apoorva Lakhia who was brought in as the AD.

Aamir further added, “It has now been 20 years and I’ve only done sync sound since then. All my films are shot in a single schedule, and have a first AD system. And let me also add that after advising me not to do all these things, Adi and Karan follow exactly this. They shoot in one schedule, with sync sound and they all have first AD systems.”

Aamir Khan also added that producing the film changed him as an actor as well and said, “As an actor, it dramatically changed my life. Suddenly, all the films I was doing were single schedule, I was able to work on the character and prep properly. Earlier, I used to dub each film, and struggle to recreate a good scene in the dubbing studio. So being a producer has actually made a big difference to my acting career, because I was able to bring in these processes that changed my life as an actor.”

He was also thankful that so far Aamir Khan Productions have had a hundred percent success rate.