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How Aamir Khan unexpectedly became a director
19th Dec 2007 22.01 IST
By Aparajita Ghosh

It was not so much out of conscious choice and pre-planning than because of compulsion of circumstances that actor Aamir Khan chose to become the director of Taare Zameen Par .

Aamir had never made a secret of his desire to turn director someday. But even he did not anticipate that his desire would materialize sooner than expected.

It all started when Aamir’s good friend Amol Gupte approached him with a subject that caught Aamir’s imagination. After having worked with children for many years, Amol had penned a story that Aamir found “deeply touching and enlightening”.

So fascinated was Aamir by the subject that he decided to produce it and act in it as well. Amol took the role of writer and director. He also found the cute kid Darsheel Safary from Shiamak Davar’s troupe to play the child protagonist in the film.

Everything was going smooth and the film’s shooting began. But one week into the shooting Aamir saw the rushes of the film and he was disappointed. He felt the movie was not turning out as good on celluloid as it was on paper.

Creative difference sprang between Aamir and Amol. It was time for a serious meeting.

Aamir says he frankly expressed his reservations to Amol in the meeting and offered to back out of the project. Without bringing their egos in between, the two decided that the director’s baton must pass on to someone else.

But there was one more problem. Aamir says finding a new director at that point in time meant delaying the project for eight months. This was not feasible because in that period the child artist Darsheel Safary would have grown older.

Says Aamir: “Amol had suggested that I take over as the film’s director. For a whole night I thought deeply about it. It was a very tough decision. But the next morning I was on the sets as the director.”

Aamir re-shot many of the scenes that Amol had already canned. The actor did face some initial difficulty in his new role. But gradually as the shooting progressed, Aamir became more deft at direction.

Amol, who was relieved from directorial responsibilities, was still part of the project, as a creative director and writer. But it was Aamir who was calling the shots.

The whole process of acting, directing and producing ‘Taare Zameen Par’ has put Aamir in a unique league of talented filmmakers like Raj Kapoor , Manoj Kumar and Guru Dutt .

And how good a job Aamir has done in his new role, we will see on Friday, December 21, when the film hits the theatres.

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Aamir Khan
Taare Zameen Par
Darsheel Safary
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