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Managing Aamir to Directing ‘Secret Superstar’: Advait’s Journey

What happens when Aamir Khan’s manager dozes off while the actor is giving him instructions? Advait tells us all.

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You’ll never feel like you’re meeting Advait Chandan for the first time, his warm smile and non-stop banter makes you feel you’ve known him forever. So after bonding over a few random things with this first time director, I finally got down to business.

Advait is the director of Aamir Khan’s next film Secret Superstar and was previously his manager for four years. The new director on the block talks about his journey from being a manager to directing the superstar himself. Read on to find out what he said:

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Q: What is it like to be the manager of one of the biggest stars in Bollywood, Aamir Khan?

Advait Chandan: It’s really easy. I’ll tell you why, because he is a really easy guy. He is absolutely no nonsense. Anybody else in that position would have been a disaster to manage because there is so much work. But Aamir Khan has so much clarity and he is so neat that it’s very easy to manage him. The problem was the volume of work, it was overwhelming for me because he just doesn’t stop.

I kid you not, there was a day he was sitting at the back of the car, I was sitting in front and I passed out. At some point, I heard his voice. He had just said something and I said ‘Yes, ok sir I’ll do it’. I had no idea what I had said ok to. This is the most embarrassing story ever. So, now I am trying to tell myself jog back and think of what he said because I can’t tell him ‘Sir, what did you say? I was sleeping.’ I can’t be in a sleeping act, I am Aamir Khan’s manager, I’ll get sacked!

So, I went and told him ‘Sir, I have to be honest, back then you just told me something thodi jhapki lag gayi thi so I was sleeping, so what did you say to me?’ He was like ‘Ya ya I want to meet this particular guy so kal mujhe mila dena usse’. So I apologised and he was all cool about it. But for half-an-hour I didn’t know how to tell him that I was sleeping in the car. But I was tired, we had been working for fifteen sixteen hours.

What happens when  Aamir Khan’s manager  dozes off while the actor is giving him instructions? Advait tells us all.
Aamir Khan, Kiran Rao at their Panchgani farm house with director Advait Chandan.
(Photo Courtesy: YouTube/@ZeeMusicCompany)

Let me tell you another incident because you have asked me how it is to be his manager.

One day I told him ‘Sir, I have a request.’ So, he was like ‘Yes!’. So, I said ‘Sir, it has been couple of years that I have been working with you’ he said, ‘Oh! You want a raise?’ I was like ‘No, no, no, I don’t want a raise. Can I start taking Sunday’s off?’ He said, ‘Right now you don’t?’ I said, ‘Two years you have not taken a Sunday off, how can I take a Sunday off?’ He said, ‘Why don’t you take Sundays off and I’ll also take Sundays off. Let us both not work on Sundays, because if you don’t work I don’t have to work.’

Well, after that we took just one Sunday off. But genuinely speaking, if I can go back I would never take those Sundays off because that’s the time when I just absorbed everything that I could (from Aamir).

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Q. What is that one thing that is consistent in him even when he is working on different projects and with ten different people?

Advait Chandan: He is totally focused, even when he is eating his food and when he is sending his message. When he is messaging and you talk to him he doesn’t listen to you, he won’t react he will just message. After he is done, he will be like ‘Were you saying something?’ So, when he is messaging he is only messaging. When he is eating you should see him eat. He enjoys every grain of rice he is eating and he is only eating and not doing anything else. You can’t talk to him when he is eating. So, the thing is, he applies his approach to whatever he is doing.

If he is doing Thugs you can’t get him to listen to another script, if he is doing Satyamev Jayate you can’t talk to him about something else and this is his approach to whatever he is does. It’s not that he does one film at a time he just does one thing at a time.
What happens when  Aamir Khan’s manager  dozes off while the actor is giving him instructions? Advait tells us all.
Aamir Khan’s look in Secret Superstar.
(Photo Courtesy: YouTube/@ZeeMusicCompany)
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Q. How does a very busy day in Aamir Khan’s life look like?

It can start anytime. I have set up meetings for him with Siddharth Roy Kapur. I called Sid and said, ‘Sir wants to meet you at 3 am’ and Sid was like, ‘Is this a prank?’ and I was like, ‘No, we are shooting in Masjid Bandar (a place in South Mumbai) and if you come to Masjid Bandar station at 3 am he will travel back to Bandra with you and have the meeting in the car.’

So he actually sleeps for 8 hours. So, whenever he sleeps the next 8 hours he is sleeping and the day starts then. But that 8 hours can start at 4 am so his next day starts 8 hours later and then everything gets pushed. And those are the 8 hours when I live my life. When I go back home, watch a movie, spend time with my family.

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What happens when  Aamir Khan’s manager  dozes off while the actor is giving him instructions? Advait tells us all.
A poster of Secret Superstar.
(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

Q. From being an assistant director, a manager to directing Aamir. How did the transition happen?

It happened very nicely because of him. I didn’t have to do it. I also feel like I wouldn’t have been able to do it had he not changed the equation. He took the initiative. He is somebody who treats everyone equally anyways. Even back then when I was his manager and I managed him for so long we had kind of become friendly. I won’t say he is like a friend of mine because he is such a senior and he is like a guru to me but we have a friendly equation.

See, I have also rehearsed with him when he is on his way in the car or you know told him what if we do that in this way in other projects as well. Then what he did was he took me to Panchgani for ten days before we started shooting for this film, I mean his part. Then he was like ‘Chalo, let’s read the scene’. So, I read with him, we jammed at it and it was not in front of thirty people, it was only him and me. At the end of those ten days, we read the script again together and we had arrived at Shakti Kumar, we had formed him. So, when we got to the set, we knew what we were doing. We were just improvising a bit here and there. It was easier that way. It was not stressful.

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Q. What kind of stress did you face having him as a part of the film?

I’ll be honest, about eight days into shooting the film, I knew that he would probably watch the footage or edit at some point and I started thinking about that and I had a bit of a panic attack, where I thought I would disappoint him or he won’t be happy with the footage and I really freaked out. I started throwing up.

That day onwards I had the worst acidity ever. That’s just how my body reacted. I was really stressed. I would have breakfast throw up and then come and have another breakfast. So, it was the stress of disappointing him. It really messed with my head. I think he sensed it at some point.

I remember the day he was watching the first cut. He was sitting in the front row with Kiran, I was sitting behind and I kept standing up to watch whether he is getting restless, is he smiling, is he laughing, is he like not into it. That was the most stressful two-and-half hours of my life. I was like, he is watching the film I made. This is what he gave me crores of money, time and energy to make and I have made this? What is he going to react like?
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Q. And at the end of it what was Aamir’s reaction?

He gave me a hug. He gave me a full hug. It was really one of my full dear diary moments. I cried a little later. He liked the first cut, I remember he was very happy with the first half and he said ‘I have few suggestions for the second half. Anyways we will sit on this but there is not much work left in this. You are ready’.

Watch the trailer of Secret Superstar here:

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