Amin Hajee's journey in Bollywood has been anything but easy. The actor, who played Bagha in the Aamir Khan-starrer Lagaan, has now opened up about the difficult phase that followed the film's success. Amin revealed that he turned down several acting opportunities because he did not consider the roles meaningful enough.
Speaking to Siddharth Kanan, Amin recalled that his wife, Charlotte Whitby-Coles, frequently expressed her frustration over him rejecting work. “She was angry with me because I wasn't signing any more work after Lagaan,” he said. The actor revealed that many of the roles offered to him were either mute parts or relatively insignificant characters and he felt the scripts did not meet his expectations.
Charlotte added, "After Lagaan, whenever a role came, he would say, ‘This role is rubbish,' or ‘That's no good,' and so on. So I told him, ‘What are we going to do? You have to work. You have to take up some work.'”
Amin Hajee explained why he previously described himself as “destroyed” while discussing the impact of Lagaan on his career. He said the film was an exceptional opportunity that proved difficult to follow with equally important work.
“To be honest, Lagaan was a unique script. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I was fortunate enough to get Lagaan, but whatever offers or narrations I received after that were zero compared to it. So I was destroyed after Lagaan, because I simply couldn't work after that. Actually, you can say that they gave me a Taj Mahal like Lagaan; they gave me an opportunity like Swades to write. They gave me a friend like Aamir Khan. What could I have done after that?” the actor said.
Amin Hajee later collaborated with filmmaker Vikram Bhatt, an association that proved financially rewarding for him. Their work together included films such as Haunted 3D and 1920: The Evil Returns.
He eventually decided to move on and focus on developing a story of his own. “When I was writing with Vikram Bhatt, I was earning well. I did quite a lot of work with him. I am a husband, and my culture tells me that I have to earn. There is a lot of pressure on men, actually. I am a failure as a man because I never really had money. I was never able to earn consistently. I have seen some very difficult days," Amin said.
It took Amin Hajee eight years to bring Koi Jaane Na to life. The psychological thriller went on to become his first directorial venture and featured Kunal Kapoor and Amyra Dastur in the lead roles.
