Most interviews with Saif Ali Khan feature Kareena Kapoor, quite prominently. But Saif's journey from the geek in glasses to 90s' Bollywood star kid, to 'hey, he can act!', to producer and father of two, is a fascinating story, rarely discussed.
After this long and candid chat, though, Saif laughingly issued something of a disclaimer, saying, "Just because you're good at being an actor, it doesn't qualify you to be an expert on anything else.
But we tend to wax eloquent often, on life and politics, and people listen, because we're successful sometimes, and they won't contradict it unless there's a bigger star who'll tell you to shut up! It's very important to remember that."
So in his cut-through-cheese diction, attractively sprinkled with a slight English accent, this is Saif Ali Khan waxing eloquent on his life and work.
You're shooting your home production "Agent Vinod" in Delhi, "Love Aaj Kal", which you produced, was also set here...
"Love Aaj Kal" was shot here because Imtiaz (Ali, the director) is from Delhi, and I think part of the romance of coming back to Delhi from England, rather than Mumbai, suited our story, so we set it in Delhi, and it had that feeling of shaadis in winter and all that... There's a distinct feel to Delhi, and Imtiaz likes the vibe here, the open spaces, the parks. "Agent Vinod" is being shot here because Delhi is the seat of government. The film is geo-politically as accurate as we could make it. We tried to think of big problems for Agent Vinod to deal with, and the biggest, the most sensitive, and closest to home we could think of involved something in Delhi. He's saving the world, but he's doing it in Delhi. If something goes wrong here, the subcontinent would be in trouble. This place has a mixture of a sense of grandeur and raajneeti – if you shoot a convoy of cars amid the buildings that have that political power and majesty about them. Also, like any big city, it has a slightly seedier underbelly, like the Kashmere Gate area, where we can also shoot crucial stuff, and Old Delhi, with its beautiful Mughal influences, which is a very cinematic place – we're here to capture all three. We're also shooting at Nirula's in CP, but with Army helicopters, which I've never seen before.
If people were to watch your films from the 90s, it might make some cringe...
(Chuckles) It makes me cringe also a little bit sometimes, but only up to a point. But seriously, I watch it and I think I worked very hard. I was laboriously dancing away in various songs. The high jeans, the hair, I know – I think cinema, particularly with changing trends and (thanks a lot) cable TV and satellite rights that pay us now (I'm saying sarcastically), serves as a reminder of our fashion bloopers. They'll always come back to haunt us. But it reminds us of the hard work we've done.
I think it's only very recently that Hindi films have become quite cool and we've become fashion-wise quite competent, internationally. Earlier, there was a class divide among people who watched Hindi cinema, it wasn't considered for everybody. I think it's become more pan-Indian now. Nobody now says 'What, Bollywood movies?' That was when people were associated with white-suit producers – people used to say producers are like that. Now we're the producers, and we're quite hip (grins).
The word 'slump' is sometimes used to describe that period in your work, from 90s till "Dil Chahta Hai" – is that correct?
I think so, yes. I started out not so great, in "Parampara". "Aashiq Awara" was okay, "Yeh Dillagi" was good – my first hit, great music, sweet love story, and that secured me a bit. "Main Khiladi..." was immediately afterwards, and that was wonderful. Then there was a massive slump of about 17 bad movies, with just enough to keep you around. Then came "DCH", that moment where the dialogues in Hindi films changed, and sensibilities changed, and Farhan Akhtar ushered in a slightly new, urban character who didn't have to be a version of an Amitabh Bachchan character to be a Hindi film hero – up until then, there was still a hangover of that 70s superstar stereotype. People enjoyed "DCH". It was also a disciplined atmosphere – other people in the industry used to laugh at us for how organised we were.
Why did they laugh at you?
They just thought – like people do – that we're too cool. Everyone had walkie-talkies, and there was pin drop silence and you could hear each other breathe. You could hear your own spit being swallowed. And then you start speaking at true tones. That's what actually cinema can be about – what it is about for Excel and Farhan, and what it should be about for Illuminati – but it's the directors who set that tone. On the other hand, you should also, as a Hindi film actor, be able to work in chaotic circumstances. It's a very diverse industry, you have to be able to cope with various environments. Some are international, some noisy, for lack of a better word...
Was the set of "Omkara" also like that?
There's a whole section of the industry which is Vishal's (Bharadwaj) domain. I'm glad they promote this rural, rugged cinema, which is the closest we can come to a Western. Films like "Ishqiya" – noir kind of movies. The small town kind of dialogues that Vishal writes – he's a representative of a school of Indian thought and values. In "Omkara", he condensed an entire scene once, by removing all the dialogues, and he boiled it down to one action – the one in which I break a mirror and anoint myself with my blood. But there was a dialogue there, a whole scene, me saying that I've been scorned and I'll take revenge and all that. He said, 'You don't need to say that, what you do is you look at yourself in the mirror, and do that thing with the gulaal.' He wanted me to do it naked, I said I'll do it naked if you direct me naked, and he refused, but that was what he did to that scene. It spoke a thousand words – it's a mark of genius. Who thinks of that? I have to respect that.
With films like "Omkara" and "Being Cyrus" that there was a second shift – from cute, goofy lover boy to 'an actor'...
I think I didn't trust myself also. And it takes a maker to sometimes trust an actor to see something... and now, I think it's important once to associate with roles that are not in the least associated with you – characters like Langda Tyagi, "Being Cyrus", or like in the movie "Aarakshan", more importantly, a Scheduled Caste teacher from a basti whose mother irons clothes for a living. Like the Sikh in "Love Aaj Kal", I wouldn't have ever thought of myself playing a Sikh. But it is fun to put yourself in scenarios that are out of your comfort zone.
Why did you agree to do "Being Cyrus" – a noir, English language film?
I have no idea. Homi (Adajania, the director) came up to me and told me the story, and I thought I wanted to have a career that's based on interesting choices, and not following... We in the film industry live in a superstitious and a slightly frightened environment. People would say, don't get a vanity van, it was supposed to be bad luck for your career. Or don't change your hair... But it's not just the industry – I think we're a superstitious country, with the concept of nazar and everything – we're very aware of the supernatural. I do what I want to do, that's all. I'm not trying to make point with that. I just thought it'd be nice to have a mixed bag of films in your repertoire – body of work – that's varied and interesting.
You're wearing glasses (huge tortoiseshell ones). Are they for effect, or are they real?
I find it amusing to wear spectacles for effect. The effect, in my case, is the required effect of magnifying my vision, it's not cosmetic. I've had glasses since perhaps I was 12 or something. I wore them during my films as well, just not on camera. I look very intelligent when I wear specs, I got voted into all the societies in school when they had those orientation things. I looked like a brainy Indian scientist, and it took them a couple of days to realise that I'm academically, like, challenged. I had these National Health glasses that the English government gives you for free, but they're not very attractive.
You were apparently into literature in school?
Yes, yes, it was my favourite subject, that and history and art history. I was completely uninterested in Math. I have an aversion to figures of that sort. Thank God it's over! I look at Sara (his daughter) working sometimes, and I shudder. In "Aarakshan", I have to write these 'equations' on the board – and oh God, I was getting annoyed just doing it! I had to learn them and explain them. I teach Maths in the film – yeah, it's pretty ironic.
At school and later, you're also rumoured to have been something of a wild guy...?
That's probably true. Actually, if you go back a little bit, we're an extremely traditional Muslim family, and a very serious one at that. We haven't been brought up like that at all – we're very secular and extremely cosmopolitan and easy-going because my father is, and my mother has also brought us up like that. Even they have an inter-religious marriage – I think they just look at it as a marriage, nothing else comes into it. But I think it's exposure to England early that led to me being a little rebellious and a little... doing the sort of thing that nobody much in my family had done, really, because most of the family was brought up in this traditional academically Islamic environment.
Soha also has been exposed to England, but Saba's very religious and... I'm telling you, most of them in our family are very religious people! But that's how young people... I'm not regretful.
After your health trouble, you've become pretty fit...
In fact, I recently got this MRI done. I wanted to because I was watching Charlie Sheen in " Two And A Half Men" (there's a series where his fast-living character has a heart attack, and fears that he doesn't have much time left), and he was doing a battery of tests. My doctor says I have the lungs of a non-smoking athlete. I haven't smoked for the past two years since that terrible scare, which was the best thing that happened to me, and with yoga and diet... I don't eat much red meat, since I'm trying to be fit. My doctor says there are no heart issues, the arteries are rocking.
After living that life, how did you take fatherhood?
I think it was the greatest thing in the world to see Sara being born, and Ibrahim. I think it comes naturally to human beings – when you see a little baby that's yours – to take to it.
But the most beautiful thing about it is, when they grow up to share the same values as you. That's an amazing feeling. Like, Ibrahim doesn't agree with the death penalty. He discusses it with me. He'd like to have one girlfriend only. I'm not sure if he's going to manage that last one, though. But I admire his purity.
Your relationships are discussed very widely in the media, your work is very demanding, and you're separated from the mother of your kids. Have you had to work harder to ensure that your children have a life away from all these pressures in life?
I'm sure we would all have preferred it had life been more disciplined – one imagines like a family unit where there isn't this kind of separation for children – but I'm quite comfortable with myself, in the sense that my kids have all my love and attention. And that's what's most important – a connection with my children. To laugh with Ibrahim or to talk to Sara, and have her come and visit me on the sets in Bhopal... She wants to go to New York.
She's 16 now – aren't you worried about boyfriends?
No, she talks to me about them. We talk a lot. It's very important to make time, and the most important thing is that connection. When I've given a proportionate amount of time to my children, my work, my parents, and my relationship.
When there's an imbalance, I feel a discomfort, and sometimes I attain this magical balance. Most of the time I'm struggling to attain it while I'm working, and I think that's my life. I think I've explained it beautifully to you.
