Aamir Khan’s Dangal which became one of the biggest blockbusters of recent times left everyone in awe with its content, direction, and performances. The movie earned Rs 716 crore at the Box Office worldwide and set a precedence which other Bollywood films will have a hard time to match up to.
While the viewers and the film industry is finding it difficult to get over the Dangal spell, there is one person from the fraternity who thinks the movie’s star wasn’t Aamir Khan.
Vidhu Vinod Chopra, the filmmaker with whom Aamir has worked in movies- PK and 3 Idiots, said in an interaction to the media that Dangal would have become a hit even without Aamir. He made these statements at the success party of Dangal and added it was content who was the king in this case.
According to Vidhu Vinod Chopra, “Aamir Khan is not KING, the story is the KING. If Dangal featured Hrithik Roshan instead of Aamir, the film would have still become a hit. The artist has a big role to play. This does not make Aamir small, but I am saying, the story is bigger. I think that it is the writer of the story and the director of the film that is really the king.”
However, it doesn’t end there. When prodded on whether he thought the success of PK was thanks to Aamir’s presence in the film, VVC added, “Even in PK it was not Aamir who was the king it was the story. Since the story of the film was good it worked.” Defending his statement, on PK working not because of Aamir Khan, VVC added, “I think that it is really the story that holds importance, the actor comes second. If the story is good, the actor does not really matter. For that matter Aamir has also acted in so many other films that have not worked, was he not considered a king then? In those films, Aamir was what he was, but it was the story that was not good and hence the films didn’t work. Ultimately it is the story of the film that is the king, queen and everything not the actor.”
These statements by someone who has worked closely with Aamir somehow seem shocking. It is not hidden from anyone how Aamir put his heart and soul in making Dangal. He took a challenging path of first gaining weight and then losing it to get into the skin of the character. Apart from the weight gain and loss process, Aamir also produced the film and ensured that the final product was amazing. The director of the film Nitesh Tiwari too in an interview said that Aamir continuously helped with getting the nuances right. Same were the thoughts of Dangal girls- Fatima Sana Sheikh and Sanya Malhotra, who had said Aamir was an institution in himself.
Given the amount of input Aamir gave to Dangal, wonder if any another actor would have done the same. Agreed that content was the king in Dangal, but writing off Aamir’s handwork and dedication would be unfair to him.
