The actor, who recently started filming his movie Vikram Vedha with Hrithik Roshan, has several projects up his sleeve — from Adipurush and Vikram Vedha to the Rahul-Dholakia film, Fire. While he’s had his share of fun and controversies over the past few years, he’s certainly enjoying the accolades as they come even as he remains modest.
“Cinema is so much about teamwork. It’s about everyone from the costume designer to the guy doing the background music — the director and the editing — the scriptwriter who writes great lines that contribute to how an actor is perceived,” explains Saif, who was seen earlier this year in Tandav, Bhoot Police and Bunty Aur Babli 2. “As actors, we’re supported by many people around us. We cannot pull it off if we don’t have a great setup and a good director who envisages the scene with over a 100 people.”
The characters keep rolling
The actor admits that after playing the funny guy and fool earlier, he’s enjoying multiple kinds of roles from comedy to dark films and negative roles as well.
Having said that, the actor moved on from the dark zone to more serious roles, like playing Cyrus Mistry in Being Cyrus (2005) and Langda Tyagi in Omkara (2006) or playing Boris in Go Goa Gone (2013) and lately Udaybhan Singh Rathod in Tanhaji; The Unsung Warrior (2020), Gossain in Laal Kaptan (2019), Samar Pratap Singh in the series Tandav (2021) and Lankesh in the upcoming Adipurush.
“I’m having lots of fun and I want to get better. I have quite a humble approach to it and I think I’ve much to learn. I’m in a great profession and I’m happy that I’m getting chances to improve and entertain people,” he says.
Letting his instincts take a call
Saif’s reasons behind choosing a script are instinct, checking if the story speaks to him.
“There are times when a story feels cool but it’s the instinct that tells you to do the film or not,” says the actor who found lots of praise for playing the bad guy in Tanhaji last year.
The actor believes the choices of roles have to be a good mix. “Now that I’ve played a few negative roles — I want to avoid being repetitive for some time so I’m not bored. Now, I desire to play the quintessential, classic hero and do some typical things that a hero does,” adds Saif, who, in two of his upcoming films, Vikram Vedha and Fire, is playing a mainstream hero again. “Even the role of Sartaj Singh in the web series Sacred Games was good, but I want to be a good-looking cop and a tough-looking fireman as well.” All said and done, the actor asserts he doesn’t wander off in search of variety.
“But as an actor, I need to keep my fire alive. I enjoy that as an actor and really hope that my audiences are doing so as well,” he says, signing off.
