Aamir Khan is currently rejoicing the success of Secret Superstar as the producer of the movie. The movie starring Zaira Wasim in lead saw Aamir in an extended cameo.
In an extensive interview with a leading tabloid, spoke about the parameters to judge anyone’s stardom in the early 90s.
“Back in the ’90s when there wasn’t so much talk about box-office numbers, how could you tell someone is finally a star? From the time I was seven, I remember reading Trade Guide, and other box-office journals.
We would check out the figures of dad’s films, and there would be a circuit-wise breakup. Within the industry, the [box-office] knowledge was always there, since cinema has always been around as a business,” he said.
He further added, “Today, mainstream media is picking up box-office figures, and that’s a choice you’re making.
In small towns, for instance, when people didn’t know box-office numbers, one way to gauge stardom was if people had begun copying an actor’s haircut. True?There are many yardsticks for measuring how popular a star is. Copying style is one of them.
I remember when Mr Bachchan became a huge star, I wanted to get bell-bottoms made like his. For me, it is essentially about how many seats one fills. It means that people love you and your work, and now they want to go and experience it. That’s important.”
He then spoke about how stardom is often calculated as per the commerciality of one’s film but that is wrong, he says. “We often measure stardom by how big an actor’s commercial successes have been. That is a faulty method.
PK’s or Dangal’s business has to do with how great those films and their scripts were. It’s incorrect to attribute that to my stardom.
My stardom comes into play when I make a bad film that people don’t want to watch. They still come because of my name. So if you want to measure an actor’s stardom, you should check out how well his flop does,” he asserted.
