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Reports of Aamir Khan’s retirement are greatly exaggerated — actually they’re quite out of date. News of Indian cinema’s Mr Perfectionist “retiring” have been swirling both on and offline, but it seems many outlets haven’t realised that the actor silently retired a few years earlier and then made an equally silent comeback.

In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter India, Khan and his ex-wife Kiran Rao revealed that he had announced his “retirement” to his family a few years prior. However, Khan’s family convinced him not to oscillate between extremes, and so he silently came out of retirement and returned to the film world. The superstar also found someone to head Aamir Khan Productions for him so he could continue acting.

“I decided to quit before Laal Singh Chadha [in 2022]. I was going through a personal journey of my own. There was no such thing as me being disappointed by cinema. It’s just, during Covid, I suddenly realised that the bulk of my adult life, starting from the age of 18 right up to now, all of my bandwidth and focus has been on cinema and films,” he shared.

“As a result, it made me realise that perhaps I’ve not been there enough for my relationships. My kids, my siblings, my family; whether it was Kiran when I was married to her or Reena (Dutta) when I was married to her, I felt that I had not been there for these people,” he added.

Khan recalled feeling a lot of guilt so, he decided to silently quit. “I’ve done enough films, 35 years of my life I’ve done films. I decided I could now spend time with my family and I was very grateful that I realised this at the age of 56, 57 — I’m 59 now, this was three years ago — and not at 88. At that point, there could’ve been nothing I could do about it. At least now I can do something.”

The Dangal actor acknowledged that he’s quite an “extreme” person — something his children made him realise. “When I was doing films I was only doing films. Junaid pointed this out to me. Junaid and Ayra sat me down. Junaid told me not to swing between extremes and that there’s a middle ground I can be in. So, I came back. No one knew I had quit because nothing came out of it.”

Khan also shared that this was during Laal Singh Chaddha was in production. “Half of it had been shot and we were left with half the shoot.” So any claims about him deciding to quit because of its response weren’t true.

Khan shared that he now wants to spend the remaining ten years of his active life, till the age of 70, as his most productive years. “I want to support talent which I believe in; writers, directors, actors, creative people, musicians, singers. People who I feel are good. I want to support people that I can become a platform for, which is why I brought in Aparna (Purohit) to lead Aamir Khan Productions. Because if I was doing so much work, I needed someone to look after my company.”

The superstar admitted that if Purohit hadn’t come in, he would’ve done maybe one or two films and called it quits. “I needed someone whose sensibility, integrity and ethics I can trust [in the realm of production]. Her straightforward approach is very similar to mine.”

Khan’s Laapataa Ladies, which is also India’s official submission to the Oscars, stands as a testament to his commitment to providing platforms for fresh voices in cinema. By supporting the next generation of filmmakers, the Taare Zameen Par actor hopes to contribute to the evolving narrative of Indian cinema.