Aamir Khan, Bollywood’s ‘Mr. Perfectionist’, is making a heartfelt comeback with ‘Sitaare Zameen Par’, a film that almost slipped through his fingers. At the Bollywood Hungama Style Icons Summit & Awards 2025, the actor revealed the deeply personal journey behind finally saying yes to the project — a journey that involved stepping away from cinema after ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’, battling emotional lows, and then rediscovering his passion.
After the underwhelming response to ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’, Aamir found himself questioning whether he even wanted to be in front of the camera again.
“I was heartbroken,” he admitted. “I told Prasanna [the director] that I was too depressed to work on the film.”
It wasn’t a decision taken lightly — ‘Sitaare Zameen Par’ had been in the pipeline before the pandemic, and both he and director R. S. Prasanna were eager to bring it to life. But when COVID hit, Aamir paused everything to spend time with his family.
That break was longer than expected. Though he returned to release ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’, its failure at the box office left him shaken. It got to a point where he decided not to be a part of ‘Sitaare Zameen Par’ at all, offering instead to produce the film.
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“Prasanna was very understanding. He said, ‘I get it. If you’re emotionally not ready, just produce it,’” Aamir shared. The team even moved ahead with casting: Farhan Akhtar was locked for the Hindi version, and Sivakarthikeyan for the Tamil adaptation.
But then came an unexpected twist.
As part of his usual process, Aamir sat in on the script readings — even as just the producer. Within 30 minutes of the first session, something inside him shifted.
“I kept thinking, ‘Why am ‘I’ not doing this film?’” he said with a smile. Over the next week, that thought wouldn’t leave him. “On the seventh day, I just blurted it out. I told Divya, the writer, and Prasanna that I ‘loved’ the script and wanted to do it. But I thought it was too late. I said, ‘The bullet’s already left the gun.’”
Prasanna, however, had other ideas. “He told me, ‘I’m from Chennai. We take the bullet that’s been fired and put it ‘back’ in the gun!’” Aamir laughed.
The filmmaker reminded Aamir that he had always been the first choice for the role and that, after standing by him for four years, he still believed Aamir was the right fit.
Moved by this loyalty, Aamir made the difficult but necessary calls to Farhan and Sivakarthikeyan to explain his decision. “They were disappointed, of course. But they understood,” he said.