Even as the debate over nepotism in Bollywood and the struggles faced by the “outsiders” continued, Saif Ali Khan admitted that he had his own share of privileges and added that he is happy to have shed these while on the sets of critically acclaimed Vishal Bhardwaj thriller Omkara.
In an interview with Film Companion’s Anupama Chopra, the actor looked back at his years as an actor and said he was happy to be part of projects of Omkara. Had Omkara been a bigger commercial success, the Bollywood industry would have gone in a different direction, he said.
The actor said there was an article written about him in which it was said that if he continued to do films like
Omkara and Being Cyrus, he would be out of work soon.
Speaking about being referred as ‘Khan sahab’ on the sets of Omkara after the first day of shooting, Khan said, “Being the kind of person I am, the films that I have done, there has also been as sense of privilege and lack of privilege, and people coming up the hard way and people coming up the easy way, there is always the feeling whether someone really deserves to be where they wanna be especially in an ensemble like this. These were probably some of the undercurrents….some of who frankly had kind of doors opened for us by privilege of our birth and the kind of parents we have had.”
He said he had worked months for the role and it felt good when he earned the respect of Vishal Bhardwaj and the others in the crew because of his performance. The actor further added that this helped him believe that he landed the role not because of his star value or the privileges he enjoyed. “It happens a lot in India. Sometimes the good actors who are struggling who don’t get the opportunities that some times some privileged people do,” he said.