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As he chatted about his upcoming film Sitaare Zameen Par , Aamir Khan opened up about a subject that has trailed him more in recent years than perhaps any of his earlier decades in cinema—online trolling. He doesn’t bristle at the topic, nor does he dismiss it.

“It does feel bad,” he admits. “You put in so much effort—months, sometimes years of hard work—and then someone, who hasn’t even seen the film or understands the context, decides to say something purely negative. That’s what trolling really is. It’s not feedback. It’s not criticism. It’s just negativity for the sake of it.”

For Aamir, there’s a clear distinction between criticism and trolling—and he believes society often blurs the two. “There’s a reason we call them trolls,” he says. “We don’t call them angels. Trolls feed off negativity. They don’t engage with the work, they just react based on bias or agenda. So, if people want to get involved in what trolls are saying, that’s their choice. But I don’t let it get to me.”

Despite the noise around trolling, he’s adamant that it has no real impact on a film’s fate. “It doesn’t affect the box office,” he says with conviction. “Not at all. If a film is good, no one in the world can stop it from succeeding. And if it’s not good, no one can make it a hit either.”

He pauses, then points to Laal Singh Chaddha , a film that faced intense online backlash before and during its release. “People say it didn’t work because of the trolling. That’s not true. If 3 Idiots had released in the same atmosphere of negativity, do you think it would’ve failed? No chance. That film worked because it was made well. Same with Dangal. Even if that had been trolled, it still would’ve been a superhit. Because content is king.”

In his view, Laal Singh Chaddha didn’t fail because of online noise—it simply didn’t connect with the audience. “The film couldn’t touch the hearts of people,” he says frankly. “It wasn’t about the trolling. The film didn’t land emotionally the way we hoped. That’s on us.”

What bothers Aamir isn’t the trolling—it’s when the real audience doesn’t respond the way he hoped. That’s who he’s listening to. “When a song releases on YouTube, I go through the comments,” he shares. “And I can spot the trolls instantly. They’ll write things like ‘boycott’. That’s not feedback—that’s noise.”

But he values the honest reactions. “I want to hear from people who actually engage with the work—who say, ‘I liked it’ or ‘I didn’t like it,’ but from the heart. That’s meaningful. That helps me grow as an artist.”

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