My next is not a remake, says Saif

Saif Ali Khan, who is all set to be seen in the ‘remake’ of Jon Favreaustarrer Chef (2014), refuses to call the film a remake. The actor says that it’s alright to not have “great original ideas (for scripts) all the time”. He adds: “America also does it (remakes and adaptation). Everybody gets rights, and gets ideas but it needs to be adapted properly, so Chef is not a remake. Those days have gone and Raja Menon (director) is a smart and an intelligent person. He is not going to simply remake a film.”

Ask Saif if, like the original film, the Hindi version will also have starry guest appearances and he says, “We had a lot of people asking us to rope in somebody hot for the wife, like Sofia Vergara (smiles). I was even told, ‘you have worked with Akshay Kumar; let’s take him for that. Ask him if he will do a guest appearance, for Robert Downey Jr’s role (from the original)’. But a lot of Chef ’s cast members are friends of the director, because while he was making Iron Man (2008) with them (the actors), he must have said, ‘yeh bhi kar lo (do this movie as well)’.”

Calling it an “Indian story” about a father and son, Saif says the movie is “different”. “Raja has taken it, but he told me, ‘I will make it my way.’ So we have to wait and watch. It’s not just a rehash of a Hollywood film. It’s totally different, but thematically it’s the same – a father-son story, father losing passion for cooking, who gets it back, but it’s all in an Indian setting,” says Saif. Admitting that it’s “hard to not compare”, the actor adds “the American way of talking is very different, and he (Raja) has done a really fine job of adapting [the original].”

It’s different but thematically it’s the same – a father-son story, father losing passion for cooking, who gets it back, but it’s all in an Indian setting). SAIF ALI KHAN, ACTOR