Saif Ali Khan is one of the most underrated actors in Bollywood and in my opinion, he still hasn’t got the due credit in films.
Saif has completed 30 years in Bollywood as he debuted with Paramapara in 1993 and even got the Filmfare award for Best Male Debut.
There could be many reasons why Saif has been underrated; the predominance of the 3 big Khans or Saif not choosing a simple and straight formula and doing versatile roles.
Some of his performances are so astounding, that they can be counted as the best performances in Indian cinema, but due to them being commercial failures, they went unnoticed.
Here is the list of 4 of the most underrated performances by Saif Ali Khan:
It took some time, but Saif Ali Khan finally garnered acclaim for his performance with films like Dil Chahta Hai & Kal Ho Naa Ho.
Since then, he has proved himself to be more than just a chocolate hero & the most versatile star of his generation.
Ahead of his next big role as Raavan in Om Raut’s Adipurush, here’s a look at 8 films that prove Saif Ali Khan’s versatility:
1. Omkara (2006)
Saif as Langda Tyagi aka Iago from William Shakespeare’s Othello is not only the best performance of his career but also one of the best performances of all time in the Indian film industry.
Saif Ali Khan is not your typical Bollywood movie star. The actor completes 30 very impressive years in the Hindi film industry and continues to make a difference with his unique film choices. Having earned himself the reputation of an experimental movie star, he believes in being a part of films that not only challenge him as an actor but also entertain the audiences at the same time. Opening up about films and what makes him say yes to a project, the actor had once told a leading daily, ‘You have to not be scared and you have to not be vain. You have to be really connected. I made interesting choices, let me be a good actor and learn.’
On that note, let’s take a look at some of his most underrated performances which strongly proved his acting prowess.
7 underrated performances of Saif Ali Khan that you can stream on Amazon Prime Video and others
1. BEING CYRUS – YOUTUBE
Being Cyrus revolves around the relationships of a dysfunctional Parsi family. Playing the titular role in the film, Saif Ali Khan earned critical acclaim for his performance. The dark comedy was the actor’s first-ever film in English.
Sophisticated, rich, and often seen as a spoilt brat back in the 90s, he changed his trajectory and became one of the most fearless actors of Bollywood. Yes, we are talking about Saif Ali Khan and his metamorphosis is something to be appreciated because he is not scared to experiment at all.
In an earlier interview, he had said that it is important for an actor to experiment to have a long and respectable career. Saif said, “If you’ve been successful at one type of thing, it could be tempting not to change that. But if you look at people who have slightly longer, wider and respected careers, they are the ones who have done different kinds of works.”
We completely agree with Saif here as he has time and again proven that it’s important to experiment as an actor and to be on the edge of tomorrow for a long-term career. Here are seven such characters played by Saif which show how experimental he has been with his choices:
There’s no denying that Saif Ali Khan is one of the most talented, yet underrated, stars in the Hindi film industry today. The actor, who went on to make his big-screen debut with the 1993 Yash Chopra directorial venture, Parampara, has always been open to experimentation. And, despite the legacy and sometimes a burden of the Khan surname, has never shied away from shifting his focus from commercial cinema to projects that require him to shed the mannerisms that he trademarked in the early years of his career.
As Saif Ali Khan gears up for the release of Tandav, on Amazon Prime Video, here’s looking at what makes Saif so confident in his skin.
PLAYING THE SECOND FIDDLE
Saif Ali Khan’s two-and-a-half-decade long journey in Bollywood has been marred with stereotypes. After his first five films failed to create an impact at the box office, Saif had to play the second fiddle to a blossoming Akshay Kumar in two of 1994’s highest-grossing movies – the romance, Yeh Dillagi and the action-drama, Main Khiladi Tu Anari.
Yeh Dillagi’s chartbuster track, Ole Ole, became synonymous with the characters that Chote Nawab went on to essay in his subsequent movies and even earned him the epithet of being the only Khan ‘who got the moves’. But, it did little to change his box office fortunes or get him meaty roles that he so richly deserved.
Despite his undeniable charm and zeal to excel, Saif was only considered good enough to be cast as a supporting actor after his solo-hero films started falling flat at the ticket counters for the better part of the 90s. Needless to say, he signed a plethora of multi-starrers and two-hero movies to make his presence felt amid the avid movie-going audience within the country.
Khan is not perfect, he never has been, and maybe his imperfection has been his most enduring strength
This is Saif Ali Khan’s 28th year in the Hindi film industry. Like most others from his generation, he’s spent more of his life on the screen than off it. Unlike the other Khans, though, Saif’s has been a career that has consistently straddled the fragile bridge between actor and star. In the 1990s, it was out of limitation. Post the noughties, it’s been out of choice. Indian audiences have been unfamiliar with this terrain – for the most part, it translated to “neither here nor there” and “no man’s land”. But over the last decade, as incoming artists have begun to straddle the two extremes, and as moviegoers have begun to look past the big screen, Khan’s status has been reinterpreted as “all-rounder”. The specialists are now the ones struggling. Saif meanwhile headlines a film, a web series, does cameos, morphs into a supporting actor at will, thrives as an antagonist as well as a canny producer.
While the best of today’s artists are inherent actors flirting with the allowances of stardom, Khan’s arc – of a star aspiring to flirt with the obsessions of performance art – is a rarity. The risks he takes are calculated, often designed to be a zero-sum game. For instance, his last three roles alone have evoked the essence of three separate schools of Indian acting: Laal Kaptaan was an ‘arthouse’ performance, Tanhaji a single-screen one and Jawaani Jaaneman a multiplex turn The glass-half-empty perception of him has finally dissolved into a half-full one, partly due to the new-age casting revolution and partly due to his disarming desire to improve, adapt, evolve and experiment.
For many years in Bollywood, Saif Ali Khan was doing romantic films with his long hair and attractive look. The ’90s is famous for his comedies with Akshay Kumar.
The Nawab of the Bollywood industry is synonymous with success and to be honest, he is expected to have such a romantic role. For instance, he was to play the role of Raj in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.
However, the bold actor changed his career drastically by opting for off-beat scripts. Saif Ali Khan played some very interesting characters on screen and carved a niche for himself in the industry.
While people were liking him in his Bollywood hero look, Saif has also done some attractive characters in films.
Kurbaan Releasing 27th Nov 2009
Starring Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Vivek Oberoi, Dia Mirza, Kirron Kher, Om Puri
Produced by Dharma Productions
Directed by Rensil D'Silva
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