Imran Khan returns with Vir Das' ‘Happy Patel Khatarnak Jasoos’ says 'I’m not seeking to be a very big star'

Imran Khan has returned to the big screen after nearly a decade, not with a bid for stardom but with a cameo driven by friendship and fun. The actor appears in ‘Happy Patel’, marking his first on-screen presence in ten years. Khan says the decision came from a simple place. He wanted to reconnect with people he enjoys working with and make films for the joy of it, not to chase rankings or box office numbers.According to reports by PTI, Khan said he spent the last two years reading scripts without feeling excited. That changed when he heard about ‘Happy Patel’, the directorial debut of his longtime friend and ‘Delhi Belly’ co-star Vir Das. “Not everybody wants the same thing from their careers,” Khan said. “I’m not seeking to build myself into a very big star, to be the biggest star or to be in the top three.”He added that he will only take on a project if he truly loves it. “Unless I love the film and really want to make it, I won’t. I will only make a film if I feel FOMO,” he said. Khan also shared that he is financially secure and now prefers working with friends and like-minded people. “The reason that I ever made films was to play with my friends,” he said, adding that art should come from “a place of love and joy.”Khan said he felt left out when he heard Das and actor Mithila Palkar were making a spoof spy comedy together. “I was struck with FOMO,” he said. “I texted Vir saying, ‘I would love to be in your film, can you include me somewhere?’” Das then wrote a cameo especially for him.In the film, Khan plays Milind Morea, an international supermodel. He and Das planned to keep the cameo a secret, but the news quickly leaked. Khan admitted he was surprised by the attention. “It’s all a lot more than one would have imagined,” he said.Reflecting on his long break, Khan said he stepped away after films like ‘Katti Batti’ and ‘Gori Tere Pyaar Mein’ failed commercially. “At first, you’ve that feeling, ‘Oh, no, my film has flopped’,” he said. “I had made the films with love and with friends. I enjoyed the process.” The quirky spy comedy ‘Happy Patel: Khatarnak Jasoos’ released in theatres on 16 January 2026. The film follows Happy Patel, the adopted son of two gay British secret agents, who dreams of joining the MI7 covert agency but fails and is instead sent to Goa on a risky rescue mission tied to his Indian roots. At the box office, the Vir Das-led film had a modest start, earning around Rs 1.25 crore on day one, followed by a small rise on day two. The film collected about Rs 1.50 crore on its second day, taking its total India net collection to approximately Rs 2.75 crore in two days.