SAIF IS COMFORTABLE BEING VULNERABLE
The actor doesn’t mind if his emotional side is shown on screen
Actor Saif Ali Khan believes that sticking to one’s comfort zone could be tempting, but it is essential for an actor to experiment to have a long and respectable career.
Saif found his groove with Dil Chahta Hai (2001), a decade after being in the industry, and reinvented himself with Omkara (2006).
And now as the actor ventures into the digital space with a web series, he says, “If you’ve been successful at one type of thing, it could be tempting not to change that. But if you look at people who have slightly longer, wider and respected careers, they are the ones who have done different kinds of works.”
The actor says the country has “quite a mature film industry” where different types of movies are made and not only “commercial”.
He adds, “There are people here who do different things, like Varun Dhawan doing Badlapur (2015), which I saw recently. That’s an interesting choice. It adds to the respect I have for that actor whom I assume is the same for everybody.”
The 47-year-old actor believes good work cannot be done in isolation. He says, “Watching the work of others is a good way of knowing what’s happening around. The way to understand actors is to watch their work. Their work should speak for themselves.”
Filmmakers, who have worked with Saif often felt that the actor has a sense of vulnerability in him and even Saif doesn’t mind if his emotional side is shown on screen. “I’ve always been quite self-deprecating and easy. That’s the environment I grew up in. A lot of people are a bit more defensive, macho. But I am comfortable being in touch (with my vulnerability)... That’s the normal way of how one should be... It’s not interesting to me. I find people like this very plastic. As long as directors think this is interesting, I hope they keep finding it so,” he says.