Warning! It's Un-Saif Here

You walk into the room and there sits Saif in a blue kurta, munching on Lays. A very loyal endorser indeed! Witty, classy and too much fun to talk to, Pratishtha Malhotra gets candid with the Chhote Nawab.

So, someone is very loyal to what he endorses…

A little bit is okay. Life is not only about being extremely correct all the time and being very healthy. Sometimes a little bit is OK. Otherwise its being so hypocritical, I don’t eat chips but I endorse them.

You have a very western persona, yet you pull off the very rustic characters like Langda Tyaagi in Omkara and now Raja Misra in Bullet Raja.How do you do that?

Omkara was something I worked really hard on, Vishal (Bharadwaj) gave me a great role and was of great help. I think I have grown as an actor, I think I have understood my job. I have a little more control over what I do. I am enjoying the feeling because I have tried to do everything; I am enjoying feeling a little versatile also.

I have enjoyed this year as well, having spent time not doing so much work, thinking about it a lot, trying to be not only selective but looking for stuff to excite me. This just felt like something new, if you keep on doing what’s comfortable for you, it gets very boring for everybody. That’s not what cinema should be about for anybody. I am lucky that I could do the role. It’s been a little tough as you need a little rough attitude to carry this role. There was a time when I thought that

I was either too young or too boyish to pull this off and that’s really exciting to know that man has changed.

Raja from Bullet Raja is rough; his body language is a bit rural, so that is difficult to control sometimes in the middle of a long shot.While dialogues can lie, body language cannot.

There is a lot of competition in this particular genre. Did it ever deter you?

No, I don’t really think about other people when I am doing movies. I am probably quite lucky that I don’t think about it because I’ll be really stressed out if I do as there is a lot of talent around. I think most of us who are successful have something about their personality and we should try to bring that out. I would hate to be influenced by other people because I don’t think in that zone.So I think you get the right director and try and look the part and play it the best as you can. I am sure there will be something special about my gangster, and I am sure there will be something special about other people’s gangster as well and that exactly is the point.

Was the producer’s instinct opting somewhere in the middle while taking up this film, because such films have had a sure shot hit record in the past?

I don’t think that it was sure shot and when we think as actors we think a little micro, producers think macro. I mean I didn’t think like a producer really. As an actor I just really wanted to work with Tigmanshu (Dhulia).

The film Bullet Raja has many characters in the film. Who do you think is going to stand out?

Definitely Ravi Kissan. He plays a girl in the film and he makes a very ugly girl ( Laughs).

From the looks of it, it’s evident that you had a ball while making the film but on the other hand why would you not produce a cult film like Bullet Raja?

Yes, I clearly had a ball while shooting for Bullet Raja. I may not produce a film like Bullet Raja because it’s not normally the way we think. For that to work, we may think that lets make a film with Tigmanshu.

Which gangster films have you liked the most?
Scarface.

Off screen you are an articulate and a very classy person but the characters that have stood out in your career graph have been Langda Tyagi from Omkara and the very colourful Raja Mishra from Bullet Raja. Where and how do you find the connect with the language that these characters talk in?

The idea is to do something different every time.For me some of these characters are very colourful and cinematic and these are things that someone has to learn. I mean I have been exposed to things. I have been living in Pataudi in Haryana, so people in the farm used to talk to me and tell me stories in a particular way. I have had an interesting life. I am 43 now, when I was a kid there were no TV’s and mobiles so people there used to tell me a lot of Shikaar stories and the way they used to speak, so I am very familiar with that accent.

Funny Titles, Long Titles, Movieland Is...

Remembering The Timeless Bhuika...

Post Comments