How Aamir thought Dangal would be the end of his career

While his contemporaries are signing on scripts where they get to act half their age and chase girls who are old enough to be their daughters, Aamir Khan dares to be different. In Nitesh Tiwari's Dangal, Aamir plays an overweight, grey-haired wrestler, closer to his real age, he admits, than probably any other character he has played so far. Not that the actor didn't have any reservations about taking on such a role. Like he candidly told us during his brief stop-over in Dubai last week to promote the film alongside his costars Fatima Sana Shaikh and Sanya Malhotra: "I thought it would be the end of my career!"
"I loved the script, when I first heard it three years back, but I also felt that I had just come out of Dhoom 3 and PK where I'm playing this young guy and I don't know whether I should suddenly jump to a 55-year-old - who's fat with grey hair," he said.  "It was too close to my real age."
An understandable sentiment coming from an industry notorious for its ageist tendencies. But the script got so much under his skin that he decided to jump into it within a year, putting aside all his "stupid thoughts and fears."
The film which has been in production for the last two years, is based on the real life story of Indian amateur wrestler and Olympic trainer Mahavir Om Prakash and his daughters Geeta and Babita.
Not many know that it was during the prep for his reality show Satyameva Jayate where they did an episode on sports that Aamir first met Geeta and Babita.
"I had researched their lives. I had seen hours of footage of the interviews of the three of them, their background, so I knew their story inside out before I heard the script from Nitesh sir."
Unlike many of his colleagues, again, Aamir is one actor who has dared to don non-glamorous roles - be it in the patriot Mangal Pandey or Bhuvan in Lagaan, he has ventured into the realistic territory in an industry known for putting up their superstars up on a pedestal - where they neither age nor do they grey.
Probably as a concession to this aspect of the industry, he has starred in a promotional video, which features him in a leaner, and meaner avatar rapping in his own voice to Dhaakad - which he assures us, is not part of the movie. This is the second time Aamir has lent his vocals to a song - the first being Aati Kya Khandala from Ghulam, which became the clarion call for every roadside Romeo when it was first released in 1998.
"Once in 18 years is enough. I won't torture you more!"
Besides the biographical elements in the film, Dangal has created quite a buzz for its anti-patriarchal tone.
 Playing a character who dreams of the day his son will fulfil his sporting dreams, the moment Mahavir realises his daughters are more than capable of taking on the role is a turning point in the film. It's a theme Aamir hopes will resonate with audiences and bring about a change in society. After all it isn't everyday that Bollywood has a movie on gender empowerment headed by one of the biggest Khans in the industry.
Fatima and Sanya on Aamir, the teddy bear
While most actresses are made to run around trees in their debut movies, Fatima Shaikh and Sanya Malhotra who play Geeta and Babita in Dangal, were made to wrestle in sand pits. They both underwent one and a half months of intense auditions (during which they were not allowed to tell anyone they were auditioning for the movie or had met Aamir Khan) which included acting workshops, gym, accent classes before they were called in to meet Aamir Khan.
The duo who play siblings in the movie said they became friends during the whole process. Interestingly both were auditioning for the role of Geeta before Sanya decided to try for the role of Babita.
"I think emotionally the bond helped us," says Fatima, since "we lived together, we trained together, we acted together and we spent nearly two years together.
As for working alongside Bollywood's 'Perfectionist' Aamir Khan, both said they were not star struck.  "When we were shooting, he wasn't Aamir Khan. He was 97 kilos of walking talking teddy bear!" said Fatima.
"So we didn't get star struck at all," says Sanya. It was only when they first saw him post his weight loss on the sets that they saw Aamir Khan, the superstar.
"It took me a while to recognise him cause he looked so good! I was so used to looking at him and seeing a teddy bear.that was when we were both star struck."
Aamir on Fatima and Sanya
Despite being in the industry for 27 years, Aamir Khan is humble enough to admit he learned a lot from the four youngsters who played his daughters in the movie.
"Working with new talent makes you realise that you have to unlearn things."
"There are very few talented people out there and it is not necessary that every talented person is also hard working."
"I was absolutely floored when I saw them - they were amazing actors."
 "I've been working for 27 years and in their first film they were 10 steps ahead of me in every scene."
All the four girls are very magical which you will see in the film."
Dangal is more than a biopic
While Bollywood has had a spate of biopics on sports personalities over the last couple of years - including Priyanka Chopra's Mary Kom and Farhan Akhtar's Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, Aamir seemed a bit uncertain about referring to his latest project as a pure biopic. "I'm not sure I see this film as a biopic. it goes beyond that. It's a story which goes beyond the people on whom its been made. The story of Mahavir and Geeta and Babita, their belief and resilience is so inspirational - in that sense, it is so biopic.
"You know other biopics tend to be more personal. This one is more social. So while it is one person's story, it's actually a story about India and that's why I think it is so special."
Aamir Khan on wrestling
"The beauty of wrestling is that though it is a contact sport, it's not a sport which is violent. It's about your speed, your agility, the sharpness of your brain or how quickly you react to something. Your intention is not to hurt your opponent. Your intention is to defeat him tactically; to get the better of the other person."
From 70 kilos to 97 and back again: Aamir piles on the kilos only to lose them
While Aamir is vehement in denying he took recourse to steroids to lose or gain weight during the shooting schedule of Dangal, the breakup of his workout schedule, which he was more than happy to elaborate on, left one in no doubt that here was one actor who took his role pretty seriously.
The actor who had put on 27 kilos to play the older heavier Mahavir and went from a healthy 70 to 97 kilos, says what people don't realise is that he was training for two years and not five months (the time he took to shed the kilos) to put on the weight. "Building muscle in such a short time is not possible.
"So what I was doing was that - even when I was fat, I was eating all kinds of food, but I was working out as hard. So the muscles was building.
"I was actually training so heavy because I knew I had to bulk up so when I lose the fat, then you end up seeing muscles which was all there."
"So as a result my weight didn't go back to 70. So from 97 I came to 77 kilos in terms of weight - fat is lighter and muscle is heavier so I ended up building a lot of muscles."
The actor says you can easily lose one pound a week or even two if you work at a slightly harder pace.  
"To begin with in the first three weeks I lost more than 4 pounds per week," he points out. "So in total I lost 14 pounds in the first 3 weeks."
The transformation of an extremely fit 51-yeard old, who could easily pass off for someone nearly half his age, into an overweight, pudgy wrestler who at his peak weighed 97 kilos and then went on to lose it all in 5 months to become 77 kilos is the stuff movies are made of. And truly something Bollywood's resident 'Mr Perfectionist' Aamir Khan can take credit for.
Aamir's training schedule at Canyon Ranch Arizona
*Three to three-and-a-half hours of trekking every morning.
*One hour of weight training.
*One hour of cycling.
*Walking for about an hour and a half.
*Swimming for an hour.
*Tennis for an hour.
"So my whole day was just activities which was physical in nature. I was training 8 hours a day (for three weeks) which was insane but I was treating it like work," he said.