Hollywood cant destroy our industry Saif Ali Khan Part 2

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

Canada: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…
USA: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart… You will mostly come to a conclusion that a well known movie star will always give you a down to earth rendezvous, and with over two decades of acting experience behind him, Saif Ali Khan remains his usual – slightly self-conscious and careful with his answers, if not downright evasive. Talk about his acting, and his best was delivered when he cut his boyish charm to brilliant effect to give birth to a bad guy named Langda Tyagi. So if there is a pattern to Saif's work, it's his tendency – from a lover-boy to a dumb-struck friend to a menacing maniac to a dapper agent. I describe him as a character actor trapped in a leading man's bone structure. And now he's back to what he does best – romance girls in what's looking like his reckoning to be the roguish lover boy once again in Cocktail. In the Part 2 special, the Nawab opens up to the lessons learnt post Agent Vinod, why Hollywood can't destroy Bollywood, his ancestral attachment to England and why we will always be a self-supportive industry.

Your attachment to England speaks volumes and that's ancestral. Nostalgia shooting in the UK, especially London?
U.K. isn't just my second home. It's much more than that. There are institutions in England that I am privileged to be a part of and that are incredibly special. It's no point talking about it but the Winchester College and the associations it has goes back to the thirteenth century. The English contribution to me, my father, and my grand-father has been very respectful. They respect my family a lot too. Coming back to London, it's an amazing city. It's got an old world charm to it that's timeless and yet can be hip and trendy as well. I like shooting there. I love the weather out there. I love Mumbai too. Look outside, it's so beautiful. When it's raining I love it.

In times when everything has boiled down to the three day collections, what really has changed here – the economics or the audience?
When cinema grows, it's a weird growth. It's not that the filmmakers are introducing new ideas or changing cinema. It's a strange give and take as to what filmmakers are trying to make and what audiences want. There's a synergy between the two. And India as a market has emerged in front of our eyes as a personality and is now developing. We can see it happening. Now, our cinema is also developing in many respectable areas that have stopped aping the West. A lot of original ideas are being incorporated. A film like Paan Singh Tomar says a lot about our cinema and our country. It's great. The world is becoming smaller each day and with communication and technology being challenged, we will surely catch up in cinema in time to come.

But honestly, are we falling short of great stories because the West comes in with their movies and we are left stranded. The recent example is The Amazing Spiderman and wait till The Dark Knight Rises opens.
It don't matter whether The Dark Knight Rises comes or The Avengers or The Amazing Spiderman, we as Indians have our own unique taste. We are rooted. We want things that are our own. It's like the food we eat. You know the Best Italian restaurant is down the road and the best Steak is available at The Taj but you still want to eat the Roti every day. Until you get the kind of masala from a film that's your kind, you will not feel you've seen a proper film. The reason Hollywood has destroyed so many industries because their sensibilities are the same. But they can't destroy our industry because we are a self supportive industry. I think there are only three in the world I can think of – Hong Kong, Hollywood and the Indian Film Industry that are self supportive.

Lessons learnt post Agent Vinod?
Oh yes, for sure. I think we at Illuminati Films are going to take one movie at a time from here on. I mean, post Agent Vinod, we were doing two movies back to back – Cocktail and Go Goa Gone. We were in a hurry to develop many films but I guess Dinesh Vijan is going to put himself in an early grave trying to play catch-up (laughs). We are going to spend more time on scripts now and then plan our projects that we can calmly deliver. We are going to zero down on a project that we are closely developing and will be announced shortly. Then we are busy with Go Goa Gone right now. But yes, there are a few ideas but the idea now is not to rush.

Article written by staff at Bollywood Hungama. Read more