Aamir Khan on Koffee With Karan: Seven things we found out about the Dangal superstar

Okay, there’s no non-effusive way of saying this: Sunday night’s episode (that’s the 18 December 2016 one) of Koffee With Karan was so much fun! Ever since Twinkle Khanna came, saw and conquered the ‘Koffee couch’, the other guests on filmmaker Karan Johar’s popular chat show have been scrambling to keep up. If the Khan brothers — Salman, Arbaaz and Sohail — managed to impress with their camaraderie (read highlights of the episode here ), then Aamir Khan — Karan’s latest guest — was also disarmingly candid on season five’s episode seven. Here’s what we found out about Aamir from KWK’s latest episode: [caption id=“attachment_3163164” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Sanya Malhotra, Aamir Khan and Fatima Sana Shaikh on ‘Koffee With Karan’ season 5, episode 7[/caption] 1. That when he has a film coming up for release, Aamir is an absolute mess He can’t sleep, he barely eats, and he needs people around him — Aamir gets so jittery when he has a film releasing, that he stays up till 5.30 am every day. That’s when friends of his start to get calls — Ranbir Kapoor, Ayan Mukerji, Jackie Shroff — and Aamir gets them, or wife Kiran, to talk to him to keep his mind off his movie. 2. That he doesn’t ghost-direct his films When Karan grills him about the rumours that Aamir ghost-directs all of his films, the actor offers a simple counter-point: take a look at his last few films and see how different they are from each other. “If those films represented my vision, wouldn’t they all look or feel the same in some way? But they don’t, because each of those films represents the director’s vision,” Aamir says. He adds that Dangal director Nitesh Tiwari would attest that he (Aamir) wasn’t even on the sets when he wasn’t required for a shot. 3. He doesn’t think of Sultan as competition Considering that Salman Khan’s Eid 2016 release, Sultan, was also based on the sport of wrestling and became such a huge hit, was Aamir at any point worried about comparisons with Dangal? In Aamir’s words: No. “I called up Adi (Aditya Chopra, YRF honcho and Sultan producer) and asked him about the film. The minute he told me, ‘It’s a love story’, I wasn’t worried anymore. Because Dangal is about a father’s relationship with his daughters, it’s about a family.” Karan wondered if based as they are on the same milieu — wrestling, Haryana — whether Salman’s Sultan had eaten into the advantage Dangal might have otherwise enjoyed. Aamir felt the answer to that as well, was no. “I think anyone who watched Sultan will also want to watch Dangal, to compare the two films. So I’m glad that Sultan was such a huge hit because it means there are all these people who will now want to see Dangal and find out if it is as good,” he told Karan. 4. Aamir gets tongue-tied when Amitabh Bachchan is around He’s considered among the most gifted actors in Bollywood, and isn’t known to be fazed by anyone or anything. But, rather endearingly, Aamir admits that when Amitabh Bachchan is around, he gets very nervous. “I just don’t know what to say, I get tongue-tied,” Aamir told Karan, who reassured him by saying that Mr Bachchan was known to have that effect on pretty much everyone. 5. His Dangal daughters aren’t scared of him Aamir — who had appeared on KWK’s season 4 with Kiran Rao — was accompanied by his Dangal daughters, Fatima Sana Shaikh (who plays Geeta Phogat) and Sanya Malhotra (who essays Babita Phogat). And the girls, both 24, were a delight. Fatima told the story of how she had nearly given up on acting (she’d been auditioning for three years without landing a single role or ad) when the Dangal casting finally worked out. Sanya revealed how she and Fatima became close friends during the month-and-a-half-long audition process they were put through. Both girls also had a fun story to narrate about how Aamir, Nitesh Tiwari and Kiran Rao told them that they had been selected for the film in the most deadpan way possible. 6. Aamir thinks Deepika, Kangana are hot Well this one was more about Karan Johar putting Aamir on the spot by asking him to declare ‘hot or not’ when he read out certain actress’ names. Deepika Padukone and Kangana Ranaut both got the ‘hot’ nod, but as for Aishwarya Rai, Kareena Kapoor and Sunny leone, Aamir said he would refrain from commenting as they’re all married. He joked that his comments might lead to complications. 7. He won’t be joining politics This, despite the fact that both Fatima and Sanya vowed they would vote for him if Aamir ever entered politics — and do his pre-poll campaigning! Want to watch the full episode of Koffee With Karan? Click here.