Mumbai, March 13 Before the cameras rolled on the sets of "Lagaan," the film's cast would start each day with the Gayatri Mantra, said superstar Aamir Khan on Friday, adding that this daily ritual fostered a sense of discipline and focus within the team.
The period sports drama film, which completes 25 years in June this year, was directed by Ashutosh Gowariker. The film was screened at the first day of the 2026 Red Lorry Film Festival.
"Akhilendra Mishra (who played Arjan) would recite the Gayatri Mantra when we were traveling by bus. Some people wanted to listen to English songs, but I insisted that we listen to the Gayatri Mantra. For six months, we would listen to it every day before reaching the shooting location," Khan said.
"And that helped us to stay in a meditative state of mind. When you go to work, it's important to understand the state of mind you are in. On the bus, it would be dark because we were traveling before sunrise, and we would listen to the Gayatri Mantra," Khan added.
"Lagaan" revolved around a villager who assembles a ragtag team to defeat the Britishers in a game of cricket to avoid paying triple the tax. The film received widespread critical acclaim and commercial success, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Khan said he is eternally grateful to the audience for their love and respect for "Lagaan."
"Everyone works hard, but very few films receive this kind of love and respect," the 60-year-old actor said, adding that when he watched the last ten minutes of the film, he was deeply moved.
Asked if he would do anything differently if "Lagaan" were to be remade, Khan promptly said he would opt for a more natural look and speak in pure Awadhi.
"Ashu and I had a long discussion about the Awadhi dialect. I liked the way Yusuf sahab (Dilip Kumar) used the language in 'Ganga Jamuna'. We had used a slightly different version. I wanted a pure Awadhi, and Ashu said that it was not possible. So, if we can do it again, then it has to be with pure Awadhi and a natural look," he said.
Speaking about the film's Oscar campaign, the actor said the team held several screenings of the movie in the US.
"In terms of promotion, all we could do was hold screenings. So, our strategy was to see if people would turn up. We held a couple of screenings for friends and other people to watch the film. So, we would contact the parking staff or anyone we could find, and we would ask them to attend the screening. Our idea was that if anyone watches the film, they will like it. Our job was to get people to attend the screenings," Khan said.
Khan said he had rejected "Lagaan" several times before finally giving his approval, only after his father Tahir Hussain advised him not to reject a "good" script.
He said when Gowariker first narrated the one-line idea of "Lagaan" about 'no rain, Lagaan, and cricket', he initially dismissed it, saying he should make something that would make sense.
However, over a period of one-and-a-half to two years, the actor said the story of "Lagaan" had a profound impact on him, to the point that he would often ask Gowariker to narrate the script every six months.
"I told Ashu to narrate the story again. This would be the fourth or fifth time. I called Reena (Dutta), Jhamu Sughand, the presenter of the film, and my parents. I have never asked my parents for advice on scripts, but I told them that I wanted to make a film," Khan said.
"When my parents heard the script, I asked them what they thought of it, and they said, 'It's good, and you should do it'. I told my father that it was an unusual and expensive film, and there were so many challenges. And my father said, 'Aamir, you rarely get a good story, and when you do, you should not reject it'," the actor recalled.
The biggest challenge, Khan said, was getting a producer for "Lagaan."
"That was a very big challenge, it lasted for one-and-a-half to two years. I approached everyone in the industry, and one of the producers even said, 'Put some action sequences in the film, or let Bhuvan stab the cricket stump into captain Russell'," he said.
Eventually, Khan made his debut as a producer with "Lagaan" and released it under his own banner, Aamir Khan Productions.
"I had not been a producer until then, and I had decided not to produce films because I had seen my father go through a lot of difficulties. I thought that if there was one thing I would never do, it was to produce films. But I ended up doing it," he said.
"Lagaan" also featured Gracy Singh, Rachel Shelley, Suhasini Mulay, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Rajendra Gupta, and Raghubir Yadav, among others.