Saif Ali Khan is someone who wears his heart on his sleeve. The actor is not one to mince his words, even though he has now learnt to measure them a bit. As he promotes his upcoming film Vikram Vedha, he recently travelled to Delhi where he engaged with the media to talk about the film, the current state of Bollywood, and his co-star Hrithik Roshan. (Also read: Saif Ali Khan calls himself ‘liberal, left wing’, but says he ‘shouldn’t say such things anymore today’)
Vikram Vedha is a remake of Pushkar and Gayathri’s 2017 Tamil hit of the same name, which starred R Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathi. Responding to Hindustan Times on whether the inevitable comparisons his film will have with the original make him nervous or excited, Saif says, “I actually welcome the comparisons. I respect Madhavan immensely. He did a great job but I know there will be comparisons. Somebody told me something once. We are called stars, and there is a whole galaxy of them. And the reason there are so many is that everyone is different. So, I hope I am able to bring an interesting take on it.”
In fact, Saif says he himself looks forward to making those comparisons. However, Madhavan’s performance as Vikram was not a reference point for his portrayal. “It’s interesting to watch now and compare them. I loved Madhavan in the film. And like Hrithik also said, we are completely different people, so the way he approached a scene is different from how I did it. I have never done a play but I imagine that’s what happens there when new actors come into a famous play. It’s so interesting,” says Saif.
The film is about to be handed over to the audiences, as well as the critics, pretty soon. And the reviews will come out. Talking about whether he attaches any importance to film reviews now, Saif says, “There are so many different reviews that sometimes it’s a mess. You read one that says it’s great, another calls it rubbish, and a third that says this is not good. So, you select over time, who you trust. So 3-4 guys who still have some integrity, in my head, I know who they are. I like to read them because that teaches me something.”
Of course, he takes his family’s opinion seriously. His wife, actor Kareena Kapoor, saw the film at a special screening in Mumbai recently. Talking about her review of the film, Saif says, “She was really happy. She felt the film was great, she thought I was really good in it. At the interval, she said ‘my God this is a blockbuster’, and then at the end, she said, ‘what a movie, I want to see it again’. It’s nice because I watch films with very few people and she is someone whose opinion I value and to see her excited about it felt good.”
In Vikram Vedha, Saif shares screen space with Hrithik Roshan, who plays the gangster Vedha to his cop Vikram. It’s the first time they are collaborating since the 2002 film Na Tum Jaano Na Hum. “I was both excited and nervous to work with Hrithik,” says Saif, explaining, “I have seen his films and sometimes it is very difficult to look at anything else. There could be beautiful girls around him or a serene sunset on screen but you can’t stop looking at this man. You know what I am talking about. So, I thought I might be in a lot of trouble because people would wonder why he has done a film with Hrithik when everybody will just look at him. But in all seriousness, he is a brilliant actor and it was fun.”
