Aamir Khan felt guilty about the commercial under-performance of Laal Singh Chaddha, and insisted that the cast and crew get together to mourn the film’s failure together, but also celebrate their work.

Casting director and occasional actor Mukesh Chhabra said that the entire team of Laal Singh Chaddha was surprised when the movie tanked at the box office last year, and earned only middling reviews when it debuted in theatres. Reception was noticeably warmer when it landed on streaming, but by then, it had already been declared one of the costliest bombs of the year. In an interview with The Lallantop, Mukesh said that Aamir threw a party for the crew after the film flopped, because he felt guilty. In the same interview, the casting director also revealed that Aamir personally helped in the audition process for the blockbuster hit Dangal.

The special thing about working with Aamir, he said, is that after five minutes, you forget that he’s a superstar, and start thinking of him as an extraordinarily hard-working newcomer. “We auditioned a total of 13,000 girls for the four central roles, after a while, we narrowed it down to 400, then 200, then 100, and then, finally, to seven. He said he would like to personally audition with each girl,” Mukesh said, adding that Aamir said that he’s only playing a ‘supporting character’ in the film.

Mukesh said that he’s only a small part of the projects that he attaches himself to, but people like Aamir are the actual ‘geniuses’ behind them. Asked what the mood was like after Laal Singh Chaddha bombed, he said, “It doesn’t impact my agency professionally, but personally, you feel bad. After the movie flopped, I spoke to Aamir and Advait Chandan (director); we couldn’t believe the movie had been thrashed. For a film to flop is one thing, but a disaster is a whole different thing altogether.”

He continued, “Not too many people know this, but Aamir hosted a party for all of us in honour of the crew. He said, ‘Sorry the film didn’t work, but we should all meet’. Who does this? We were all wondering why they’re having a party, but they wanted all the departments to come together. Everyone was there, Advait, Pritam, Kareena, everyone was there, Amitabh Bhattacharya is singing songs from the film. Aamir kept saying that it was his fault.”

Released in 2022, a year that was considered unfortunate for Hindi films as a whole, Laal Singh Chaddha made less than Rs 130 crore worldwide against a reported budget of Rs 180 crore. The movie was an official remake of the Hollywood classic Forrest Gump, starring Tom Hanks.