Aamir Khan demanded a late fee of Rs. 8 crores for Rang De Basanti reveals Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

Rang De Bansanti is one of the Bollywood classics of the new millennium and Aamir Khan rose the bar with the film. Filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra who was at the helm of affairs of this popular patriotic drama has in his autobiography revealed some unknown stories from the making of the film. The director praised Aamir for his dedication to work but also revealed that the actor had a clause that would double his fee if the film stretched beyond scheduled.

"Aamir is a visionary and understands everything that is going wrong or right with the creative process. Sometimes, tough decisions like ‘let’s shoot for 10 more days’ became easy because Aamir backed the need to do it. Also, he had no ego about whose scene it was. If the scene belonged to the other boys, he would happily stay in the background because the film’s narrative was the Bible that could not be tampered with. Aamir’s cinematic understanding remains unparalleled in our industry. Without his nod, RDB would have been another dreamer’s script gathering the dust of apathy and inertia," a report in The Quint shares from Rakeysh’s book.

The filmmaker further added, "While signing on the dotted line, Aamir included a clause, which was the reason I ended up making the movie on time in the first place. Here’s an example: ‘If my fee is 4 crore and you don’t pay me on time, then you’ll have to pay me 8 crore for defaulting,’ he had said. I had never even seen 8 crores till then.”

Rang De Basanti reelased in 2006 and starred Aamir Khan as the protagonist DJ. Apart from Aamir, the film also starred, Kunal Kapoor, R Madhavan, Siddharth, Soha Ali Khan, Alice Pattern and Sharman Joshi in key roles. The movie won 4 national Awards including Best Film.