Aamir Khan demanded Rs 8 Cr: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra reveals in his autobiography

Filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s autobiography recently revealed how Aamir Khan had added a clause while signing the Hindi cult classic film, Rang De Basanti, which would have doubled his payment, if the movie wasn’t made on time. 

Mehra wrote in his book how Aamir compelled him to finish the movie in the set deadline and even credited him for making the film on time. “‘If my (Aamir) fee is Rs 4 crore and you don’t pay me on time, then you’ll have to pay me Rs 8 crore for defaulting,’ he had said. I had never even seen Rs 8 crore till then,” Mehra elaborated on the clause.

The filmmaker praised Aamir profusely and called him a “visionary”. He added that the actor had seemed to have imbibed the spirit of both DJ and Chandrashekhar Azad which allowed him to interpret his characters accordingly and give his own takes on them. 

“Without his (Aamir) nod, Rang De Basanti would have been another dreamer’s script gathering the dust of apathy and inertia,” the filmmaker wrote.

Mehra’s autobiography The Stranger in the Mirror, which was released on July 27, covers his childhood, his days in advertising and is peppered with hearty anecdotes from his filming sets.  

The Toofaan director also revealed interesting information regarding how AR Rahman wasn’t his first choice for the score of the film and had gone on to finalise Peter Gabriel of the UK band, Genesis. In the end though, he went with his “gut feeling” and decided upon Rahman.

Read an interesting tidbit about Daniel Craig nearly being in the film here. 

The 2006 release is available for streaming on Netflix.