A ditsy rockstar sporting spiky hair with blond highlights―it is not a look Aamir Khan has been seen in before. Averse to the idea of awards in real life, Aamir, in the first frame of the trailer of Secret Superstar, is seen bragging about the awards he has got as a musician, the harebrained rockstar Shakti Kumar, over the years.
Nobody had imagined Khan in this role, but the actor insisted on giving a screen test for the role. The eighth film in 17 years from Aamir Khan Productions, Secret Superstar is the directorial debut of Advait Chandan―Aamir's long time manager, who has earlier worked as assistant director and production assistant on Dhobi Ghat and Taare Zameen Par. “Can you believe, for my first film, I had to take a screen test of Aamir Khan?” remarked Advait at the trailer launch, talking about how the role came into being.
Aamir's wife Kiran Rao thought the character was creepy and couldn't picture him in it. She dissuaded him to do the role. “He (Shakti Kumar) is the kind of guy you wouldn't want to hang out with. I told him not to do the role, but then when we saw him during the screen test, it turned out to be very funny and everyone loved it,” she said.
That was that. The role, however, is not modelled on any particular musician from the industry. “It's modelled on a lot of people,” said Aamir.
The film charts the story of a teenage girl (Zaira Wasim) from a Muslim family with an aspiration to become a singer. Zaira, who had worked with Khan in Dangal, says that it was difficult to see him in the character of Shakti Kumar, especially after working alongside him in Dangal, in which he played a stern, strict father.
“I had seen him in a father figure. I burst into laughter when I saw him for the first time for this film. It was difficult for me to say the dialogues in front of him,” said Zaira, who looks promising in the trailer.
“Like Dangal, this also explores how we don't give the same opportunities to the girl child as to boys. This is again a film based on the empowerment of the girl child,” said Aamir about the film, also adding that since it charts the musical journey of the protagonist, it has many songs.
“It's basically a musical. Once we start releasing the music for this, you'll realise. Amit (Trivedi) and Kausar (Munir) have done a great job,” he said.
