Hindustan Times ST (Jaipur) - Hindustan Times (Jaipur) - City
‘I CAN’T BECOME PAPA LAUNCHER’
Saif Ali Khan talks about daughter Sara Ali Khan’s film debut
With 25 years in Bollywood behind him, Saif Ali Khan is now one of those actors whose offspring are ready to join the ranks of ‘rising stars’. His last film, Chef, had all the right ingredients but the final dish wasn’t so eagerly lapped up by viewers. Nevertheless, the 47-year-old actor feels content. “What I need to be happy is to challenge myself creatively,” he says. “Chef was the least challenging — almost like it was written for me.” His next roles do meet the criterion of “challenging”. Saif says, “Bazaar has me as a Gujju businessman with a difficult accent. Kaalakandi is a difficult role. In Sacred Games, I play a Sardar and that’s great fun. I’m deeply satisfied; I understand life and I know it’s a blessing to have a creative job.” His most difficult role yet might be playing the father of the bride — not in the literal sense, because Sara Ali Khan, Saif ’s daughter from his first marriage to Amrita Singh, isn’t getting married. But she’s on the cusp of her Bollywood debut, and one wonders, would Saif walk her down the industry aisle? He says, “If we had a production running, I could’ve thought about [a role for Sara]. We’re both professionals and I also have my own work to do. I can’t suddenly become ‘papa launcher’. It’s for the best that she finds her own way.” Son Ibrahim, who had a role in Tashan (2008), has his eye on acting, too. Saif says that all his friends’ children see acting as “an attractive profession with respect, affluence, and some privilege”. But “how many are interested in acting, I don’t know”, he adds. Sara has a London School of Economics degree and has still chosen Bollywood, “so there’s something attractive about this lifestyle”. About his youngest child, the sensationally popular infant Taimur Ali Khan Pataudi, Saif describes how he and his wife, actor Kareena Kapoor Khan, divide time between work and parenting. There are the family holidays, and then the baby boy sometimes stays with dad, sometimes keeps his mom company, such as for her Delhi shoot schedule for the film, Veere Di Wedding. That gave Saif some me-time, too! The actor adds, with disarming honesty, “Kareena and I are lucky we have help and we have distraction, because I do think that sometimes having a child can be overwhelming if you don’t have breathing space.”