'It's hard work all the way'

Star talk

He was known as the bratty, little nawabzada of Bollywood with an adventurous lifestyle and a fun-loving attitude.

But one thing that no one can deny about him is his hard work and never-give-up attitude.

Today, with his share of hits and flops, Saif Ali Khan describes himself as a fairly balanced individual. Having debuted as an actor in Parampara (1992), Saif explains how much the industry has changed for men in their 40s.

“When I entered I was 20 and I remember actors in their 40s being told to go home. But today things have changed, the industry has got a larger understanding of things and there is a lot one can achieve.”

“Actors like Amitabh Bachchan or Anil Kapoor get to play interesting roles and that’s really nice,” said Saif, who was in the City to promote his new film Love Aaj Kal.

It’s ‘what you see is what you get’ theory when it comes to Saif promoting his movies. You see a sweet, fun loving, good mannered man with a naughty streak on screen and the same holds for Saif in real life.  Ask him how much of the character, Jay, that he plays, represents him? After a lot of introspection, you get to hear, “Well, he sure does look like me.”

The movie has Deepika Padukone as his co-star. Explaining the absence of his lady love Kareena, he said, “I wish we could have taken Kareena but Imtiaz had his own vision and I did not want to interfere.”

As for Deepika, Saif says that he never really spoke to her or got to know her.
“It’s just not my way. I like to give my actors some amount of privacy to do their own thing. But of what I did get to know her, I could see that she is a very sweet person and towards the end of the film she did leave her mark on the film,” he added.

More than Love Aaj Kal, Saif was excited and proud to announce his next production called Agent Vinod as it will finally see Kareena and Saif together. “I am really looking forward to this one as the script is very interesting,” he informed.

As a producer, Saif is learning a new thing everyday but he is finding it difficult to make time. With production related issues taking all his time he is still trying to balance his French classes, his music which he finds very liberating and acting.

“Not many people know that when you are acting, you are shooting at the strangest of places, peeing in the dirtiest of loos, adjusting to the long hours and I don’t think any ‘spoilt rich man’s son’ can survive,” he said.

“I have done it all and it’s truly my hard work that has brought me here,” he concluded.