‘Lagaan’ was one of the best movies of Aamir Khan’s career. The film directed by Ashutosh Gowarikar is also considered one of the best movies of Hindi cinema. In a recent interview, director Apoorva Lakhia who was the assistant director on the film, has recalled some anecdotes and how things were during the shoot.Lakhia revealed that Aamir had hired him largely to take care of the discipline on the set so that people come on time and shoot goes smoothly. He said during a chat with Cyrus Says with Cyrus Broacha, “He wanted to bring a fresh, disciplined approach to filmmaking—something Bollywood hadn’t really seen before. To make sure things stayed on track, he brought on Apoorva Lakhia as assistant director, mainly because of Apoorva’s experience working on Hollywood sets.“Lakhia added, “I told them no cars, just one bus. Everyone travels in a bus, no one gets a car. Anyone who is late for the bus, the bus will not wait for them for more than five minutes.” On the third day, Aamir was late. “I thank god Aamir was late on the third day. Ronit Roy was doing security. He refused to shut the door and the entire bus was looking at me to see that what is he going to do now? Let’s see how he leaves Aamir behind.”He elaborated further, “I gave a kick to Ronit Roy and he fell outside the door. We started the bus and ran from there.” Everyone thought that would be the end of his job. “Yashpal Sharma said, ‘Kal Bombay bhai (Brother, you’ll be in Bombay tomorrow).’ So I said, ‘It’s okay if that is the situation, I’ll leave, at least people will remember me.’”Aamir reached the set 90 minutes later with no transport available. But he didn’t say a word. “He didn’t say anything to me. He wasn’t angry. That was his way of saying, ‘good,’” Apoorva recalled.Later, on day five, Gracy Singh was late too—and she was left behind just like everyone else.The shoot that was meant to last six months stretched to nearly a year in the desert. The film’s first cut was over five hours long. They had even filmed night cricket scenes and two full innings, which were eventually edited down to just a montage.
