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When Imran Khan made his debut in the movies in 2008 with Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na, he was seen as the golden boy of Bollywood. What is now described as nepotism, was then politely called the ‘filmy lineage’ where people who have been in the profession for ages passed on the reins to the next generation. Imran, the nephew of movie star Aamir Khan, was the next in line who was going to inherit the legacy that was once established by Aamir’s uncle Nasir Hussain. Yet, Imran never became the hero he was hyped up to be and probably chose to step away from the constant race of being on the top.
Imran Khan made his debut around the same time as Ranbir Kapoor and in those years, every episode of Koffee with Karan had the guests choosing one or the other for the next big star. Most picked Ranbir, but a few backed Imran and while all of this was quite innocent, it was fairly obvious that Ranbir and Imran did not belong in the same league when it came to their acting chops and that was probably what the audience also caught on in those early years. Imran, during his appearance on the show, also admitted to the fact that Ranbir was indeed a better actor. “I do feel he’s a better actor than I am,” he said and shared that he had just “stumbled into acting at the last minute” and it wasn’t his “lifelong dream” to be a movie star, and this was what reflected in his choices, and eventual career path.
Soon after Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na, Imran was seen in Kidnap. The film was directed by Sanjay Gadhvi (of Dhoom and Dhoom 2 fame) and had him playing a villain. Since he was fairly new, he was applauded for his unexpected move. His next, Luck, again had him playing a non-traditional hero character. Imran then signed a couple of romcoms like I Hate Luv Storys and Break Ke Baad and while these films made some noise, it was starting to get evident that Imran wasn’t the best new actor in town. He could pull off a date movie, but these weren’t the memorable date movies that anyone would remember a few years later.
Things seemed to shift when he appeared in Abhinay Deo’s Delhi Belly, but the credit for the film didn’t solely belong to Imran. It was one of those cases where one could see that Imran had not been making the right choices before this one. Deo had initially considered Ranbir for the role before he locked Imran and told Bollywood Hungama on the film’s 10th anniversary, “Ranbir Kapoor didn’t decline the film but it didn’t work out due to multiple reasons. But yes, he was also considered.” Ranbir, apparently, opted out because he felt he would be too embarrassed to watch it with his parents. Subhash K Jha quoted him as saying, “I just thought about how embarrassing it would be for me to watch this film with my parents at the premiere, and I opted out.”
Films like Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola, Once Upon A Time in Mumbai Dobaara, Gori Tere Pyaar Mein and a few others followed but Imran wasn’t able to hit the nail on the head with any of those and one could see that his film choices weren’t in sync with what viewers had expected out of him. Speaking about his choices, Imran told PTI in a 2015 interview that it was the same choices that were getting him applause a couple of years before that. “Two years ago, the media was celebrating my choice of films with Vishal Bharadwaj and Milan Luthria. They said I was making smart decisions… what happened to that?” he said. He still stood by his “intelligent choices” and added, “…I think we went wrong in the making of the films, which often happens. You sign on with the best of people but when you end up with the final cut you realise that this was not what we had intended.”
His last appearance in the movies was in the 2015 film Katti Batti with Kangana Ranaut, which had Aamir Khan in tears as he stepped out of the screening. Since then, Imran has not appeared in any movies. Although he directed a short film, Mission Mars: Keep Walking India, in 2018 but apart from that, he has largely stayed away from the movies. His time away from screen made it obvious that he had quit film but actor Akshay Oberoi further confirmed it in 2020 and was quoted by Jha as saying, “He chose to quit. I can say that with certainty. He could’ve gotten more work if he wanted to… But I am not sure he enjoys fame at all.” Imran had vocally addressed his discomfort with stardom much before that when he said that he was “uncomfortable” with being “treated like a star”.
Imran’s career as an actor wasn’t even a decade long and the decision to quit was unconventional. During his appearance on Koffee with Karan with Ranbir, RK had joked that he seemed like the kind of guy who “could quit at his peak if he just wasn’t interested”, and seems like he did even before he got there.
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