Before release, Rajinikanth's Coolie directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj was one of the hottest films in the trade circle. Apart from the actor-director combination, the inclusion of actors like Nagarjuna, Upendra, Sathyaraj and Soubin Shahir had added extreme impetus to the film's hype. The makers then went a step further by unleashing the ultimate casting coup - Aamir Khan. For someone who barely does one film every two years, getting Aamir for a cameo was considered an impossible task. Until Coolie happened.
The Bollywood superstar also mentioned in interviews prior to release about his cameo and how he felt that the climax would be a load of fun. Since its release on 14th August 2025, Coolie has been getting mixed to negative feedback, which caused the film to end with underwhelming numbers at the box office. The action thriller had a record-breaking global weekend but from its fifth day, there were drops everywhere, most notably in the Tamil Nadu box office where it will finish below Rs 150 crore. Given that three films have already crossed Rs 200 crore in the state, this result is extremely disappointing. The worldwide gross of the film has crossed Rs 500 crore but given the high landing cost, it is difficult to call Coolie a clean hit at the box office.
Meanwhile, Kanagaraj's supposed Bollywood entry with Aamir has also been shelved. While speculations were rife about the development being a result of the latter's displeasure to Coolie's response, his alleged words in an interview seem to unofficially confirm this. Aamir's cameo was one of the many heavily trolled portions in Coolie and the 60-year-old star admitted his mistake in doing a role that most people felt wasn't worthy of a person of his stature. An interview clipping floating around on X suggests that the 'Ace Khan' termed his cameo in Coolie as a mistake. There is no official confirmation about the authenticity of this interview but it has gone viral on social media.
"I accepted the cameo for Rajini saab. To be honest, I still can't figure out what my character was meant to do," said Aamir in an interview recently.
"It felt like I just walked in, said a line or two, and disappeared. There was no real purpose, no thought behind it. It was badly written."
Known to be heavily involved in his projects, this was an exception where Aamir had publicly gone on record stating that he hadn't even read the script. However, even while his intention was to do a film with Rajinikanth, fans and pundits wouldn't have expected him to be totally unaware of proceedings. Especially since he had hyped up the film's climax portions in a few interviews done before release. All this added to the amount of criticism and trolling that the film received, as did Aamir.
"I wasn't involved creatively, so I had no idea how the final product would turn out," explained Aamir.
"I thought it would be a fun appearance, but clearly, it didn't land."
"Itna reaction milega socha nahi tha (I didn't realise that there would be such a reaction)."
"But looking back, I understand why people were disappointed. The scene didn't work - simple as that. It was a big mistake and one that I'll be very careful about in the future.