RS Prasanna on 'Sitaare Zameen Par': 'Aamir Khan is Like Batman; Each Time He Falls, He Rises Again'

Long before Sitaare Zameen Par director RS Prasanna made his Tamil filmmaking debut with Kalyana Samayal Sadham, he recalls the colour of Aamir Khan’s T-shirt during the actor's visit to Chennai to collect an award. It was an award given to the best debut filmmaker, called the Golapudi Srinivas Award. Despite his indifference towards awards of any kind, it remained one of the few times Aamir Khan accepted an award, and he received it for making Taare Zameen Par.

Prasanna, who was still in film school, was seated so far back in the auditorium that he could barely get a clear glimpse of the star. Cut to 15 years later and he would be making the same film’s sequel, “a dream so unreal that I did not even have the courage to dream it.” It was also the first memory Prasanna shared with Aamir when they first met. A week before that journey, Prasanna looks back all everything that happened in between:

Edited excerpts:

Before we start speaking about Sitaare..., I’m curious to understand Aamir’s mood when you first went to meet him. From what I was able to understand, he said he was on the verge of giving up on cinema for good when you both met…

First off, I realised that he is a very emotional person, and quite often, we forget that artistes are those who create cinema, and artistes are people who are very sensitive. He’s a guy who does everything with his heart. I felt it was just Aamir being Aamir. It was a reaction to what was happening in his life and one should respect that.

Of course, it did come as a shock, but I didn’t take it seriously. I told him that Aamir quitting movies was akin to Sachin saying he’s never going to touch a bat again, or Illaiyaraaja saying he’ll never compose music! That might be a statement stemming from anger or emotional turmoil, but that’s never going to happen. 

After meeting him at his lowest, you are someone who witnessed his journey as he fell back in love with cinema. How would you describe that period?

I think he was having that heartbreak precisely because he was in love with cinema. I saw it as the rarest of opportunities to discover someone so vulnerable. When was the last time you saw a superstar be vulnerable? It was like seeing Batman just before his rise. This vulnerability and this emotion is precisely who Aamir is. This is exactly what a person as passionate as him would go through at such a phase, and I think I too would have reacted like him if I were in that position. At a time when everything is “Swiggy-fied” or when everything is a Reel, people fail to understand the meaning of longevity. He’s a legend because each time he falls, he rises. 

What were the conversations like at this point?

I had the privilege of forging a special bond with him through this time. He could have easily shut the door on me, but he didn’t. He was opening up to me and I saw it like I was being allowed into his heart. Before this, he had already okayed the script and the film, so I knew he needed time to heal. Of course I’m glad he ended up doing the film, but I used to tell him often that I never got any time to spend with him once our shoot started.

Until then, my writer Divya Nidhi Sharma and I spent many long nights with him (Aamir) in his Panchgani house by the fireside. It was winter and he sang so many Kishore Kumar songs for us and I tried to match him with some Tamil songs. I remember telling Divya on one of those nights of just how lucky we are to see this. The world will give an arm and a leg to see Aamir sing a Kishore Kumar song (laughs).

What are the memories you have of watching Taare Zameen Par?

Oh, many! While I was watching the first half with Darsheel Safary playing Ishaan, I got really sucked into the film’s world. So when Aamir enters the film with ‘Bum Bum Bole’ I remember thinking, “Oh wait, Aamir Khan is also in this film!” I marvelled at the confidence of this first-time director, who had the confidence to put Darsheel’s name first on the credits, and to appear just in the second half. I don’t think we had seen any of this before; it speaks of the integrity of the man and his love for cinema. 

Did you tear up at the end?

Of course. I cried buckets and was feeling a little embarrassed, trying to look around to see if anyone saw me. I realised the whole of Sathyam theatre (Chennai) had become an ocean of tears by then. It was a beautiful, cathartic session for all of us. It was the closest so many of us got to therapy.

The film’s success was almost a miracle then. It’s a film we would have called an “art film” until we saw how well it worked. 

Correct. Without Aamir sir, movies like Taare Zameen Par or even Dangal could have been called art films. I love art films too and I mean this in a positive way. But when Aamir attaches himself to such films, he empowers the team with his star power and his marketing support and goodwill. Suddenly, even a film with the texture of an art film becomes a mainstream film, because his fans expect only good cinema from him.

What was the process like to find so many actors to cast in Sitaare...?

We needed 10 (main) actors, and we also needed 70 other actors who played in rival teams. I was very apprehensive if we could find so many new actors, but it was Aamir sir who gave us the confidence. My team, with Tess Joseph and Anmol Ahuja, worked on the casting. We also had a consultant who would advise on how to communicate on sets, what are the dos and dont's.

We had a medical facility on the sets and we also brought the kids’ parents onboard. We also got a lovely team of HODs who were very happy to use their skill to make a meaningful film. We wanted the ‘Sitaare’ to come first and not the other way around. We had acting workshops in the morning, and then basketball training in the evening. In the afternoons, we kept aside time for them to take a nap. It took almost a year and 2500 auditions!

Right at the start, did you decide that this was going to be a long-ish process without time constraints?

It was done with a lot of understanding. If you have the privilege, where you can afford to have more sensible work hours, every film should be made this way. We had a lovely team and we planned it out in a way that we only shot with a few of them at one point; our crew had become like their older brothers and sisters. It matters because even the editor should know what the rhythm is of each character. The sound guy needs to know how to mic them. With costumes, Sachin would made sure the fabric that they all wore was custom-made for each of them, because a lot of them have skin sensitivity. So even the DOP Srini Reddy’s lights were not harsh because some of them are prone to epileptic seizures. 

Finally, what is your favourite Aamir Khan film?

Taare Zameen Par for sure and of course, Lagaan. These two are absolute masterpieces. They are also very, very difficult films to make. By the time he made Dangal, we had begun to expect greatness from him. But for us in the south, Lagaan was our first introduction to Aamir Khan.