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Throwback: When Aamir Khan reacted on pay parity in Bollywood: ‘If I am paid Rs 10, it is because…
Amid chatter around remuneration disparity among actors and actresses in Bollywood, Aamir Khan once explained how the market demands a person’s salary.
Bollywood has long been part of the discourse surrounding pay disparity between actors and actresses. While there has always been a debate about how much a person should be paid, a past interview of Aamir Khan has resurfaced, in which the superstar clearly explained how remuneration works in the film industry.
When Aamir Khan clarified about pay parity in Bollywood
Speaking with NDTV during the promotions of Talaash, Aamir Khan discussed how actors or actresses are paid based on their market value, not the amount of hard work they put in.
The actor said, “In films, the fact of the matter is - yes, heroines work very hard, but so do cameramen, so do light boys on the set; all of us should be paid equally. All of us are working hard; I am working hard, and so is a light boy. Why is he paid differently from me? It is not because he’s a man or a woman.”
“The reason you are paid differently in cinema is that the market forces understand that your ability to bring money back into a film. See, if I am paid Rs 10, it is because I can bring back that money and more. If I am paid Rs 5, and if Rani can fill more seats than I can, 101% she should be paid more than me. The market forces make sure that she gets paid more than I do,” Khan added.
Aamir Khan concluded by emphasizing that a person’s remuneration in the film industry is not determined by their gender, but rather by their ability to attract audiences to the theaters.
Aamir Khan’s work front
Aamir Khan was last seen in the coming-of-age sports drama, Sitaare Zameen Par, where he played the lead role as a basketball coach assigned to train a group of specially-abled children for an upcoming tournament.
The movie featured Genelia Deshmukh as the female lead and is currently available for streaming on YouTube through a rent-based subscription model. In addition, Aamir also appeared in a cameo role in the Rajinikanth-starrer Coolie.
Looking ahead, the actor is set to collaborate once again with director Rajkumar Hirani for a biopic on Dadasaheb Phalke.
