Saif Ali Khan’s latest outing, Kartavya, currently streaming on Netflix, sees him playing a cop with a Haryanvi diction. It caught the attention of many as it reminded them of his Langda Tyagi act in Omkara.
Often associated with sophisticated and metropolitan characters, Saif proved his range in Omkara, where he adopted a raw dialect and rustic and rough-edge mannerisms.
Now, speaking exclusively to News18, he reveals that films like Omkara and Kartavya don’t come to him very often. “I had to convince filmmakers that I can be more than a metrosexual guy a couple of times,” he says.
He recalls that landing a part in Parineeta wasn’t really a cakewalk either and that Vidhu Vinod Chopra had another actor in mind to play Shekhar. “It’s a long story… Mr Chopra is an amazingly encouraging person. He was making Parineeta. We were speaking to each other and he told me that he was looking to cast someone else as Shekhar. He told me that that actor’s career hadn’t worked out the way he wanted. I was told that he has pain and I didn’t,” says the Sacred Games and Adipurush actor.
The place that the veteran producer came from, according to Saif, was ‘not fair’. But he’s happy that he eventually was roped in for the Pradeep Sarkar directorial. “I said to Mr Chopra, since when is failure a prerequiste to getting a role? We had a bit of a joke on that. He thought I’m a bit ‘rom com-y’. I talked to him about it and tried to convince him to give me a shot at playing Shekhar,” he remarks.
There were two more roles for which Saif had to chat up with the makers to let him play those. “I also had to convince the makers to give me the role that I eventually played in Ek Hasina Thi. Even in Race, they wanted me to play Akshaye Khanna’s role. It was an amazing role but I told them that I want to play the elder brother, who’s a little more responsible,” he shares.
“I had had successes in romantic comedies and lighter roles. So, it took a leap of faith to cast me in more serious roles,” Saif adds. However, Langda Tyagi isn’t one of those parts. In his words, it was all Vishal Bhardwaj’s vision and he couldn’t have ever imagined that a director would come to him with a role that like that’s so far removed from the ones he grabbed eyeballs for.
“I can’t say the same for Omkara. The decision was up to Vishal ji. I would never have asked for that part because I would’ve never gone there. I would’ve never thought of even doing a role like that on my own. He thought of casting me in Omkara. But these serious, calmer and cooler guys are parts that people don’t usually come to me with,” Saif states.
