Bollywood, its celebs are treated like dustbin, says Saif Ali Khan at Baazaar trailer launch | Bollywood - Hindustan Times
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Bollywood, its celebs are treated like dustbin, says Saif Ali Khan at Baazaar trailer launch

Hindustan Times | By
Sep 26, 2018 12:59 PM IST

Baazaar stars Saif Ali Khan, Radhika Apte, Chitrangada Singh and newcomer Rohan Mehra in prominent roles.

After a series of duds (Rangoon, Chef, Kaalakaandi), Saif Ali Khan is finally on an upward swing in his career. After the success of Sacred Games, comes his next film Baazaar. The trailer of the film was launched on Tuesday and it looks promising. Saif plays an ambitious, and unscrupulous, Mumbai stock trader who worships money. The film also stars Radhika Apte in a glamorous role, Chitrangada Singh as Saif’s wife and newcomer Rohan Mehra, son of late Vinod Mehra. If Saif’s character Shakun Kothari is a stock market veteran, giving him challenge is Rohan’s Rizwan Ahmed.

Saif Ali Khan plays a stock market pro Shakun Kothari.(Screengrab)
Saif Ali Khan plays a stock market pro Shakun Kothari.(Screengrab)

Rohan Mehra, son of late Vinod Mehra, will feature in the film.
Rohan Mehra, son of late Vinod Mehra, will feature in the film.

With its concoction of money, glamour, Mumbai life, lies, deceit and revenge, one can be certain that the plot will be interesting.

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Small wonder, at the trailer launch at Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), all the principle players sounded rather upbeat. Speaking at the launch, Saif said that he was thankful to Nikkhil Advani for offering him a role like this one. “Shakun Kothari is very successful and ruthless, which was fun to play,” he said.

He added, “I recall speaking to Nikhil and saying that they are many films on the stock market which I don’t understand. Some of the numbers and figures are too much for me. He told me that it’s not about numbers. It doesn’t matter if you understand stock market or not. It’s about good and bad, it’s about crossing lines--it could have been about cricket or anything. It is a metaphoric reference. It was tough job to have a Gujarati accent, to ensure it didn’t become a caricature, to make it real, to make it cool... I had a really good time doing it.”

 

Saif went on to speak about how it is a good time for actors in Bollywood and how he himself feels more secure as an actor.

“By the grace of God, I feel secure. I want to choose exciting roles. I want to challenge myself. It’s such a great time in the movies. The kind of roles that one is offered are so different from what they used to be. We are looking at the future, we are pushing boundaries. It’s nice to reinvent,” he was quoted by PTI as saying.

When asked about people who flee the country after committing financial fraud, the actor described the act as “terrible” and “horrible”.

“We want less corruption, less scams. We (Bollywood) have a very honest line of work... We try to make films, we try to sell films. Most of the times the press catches the movie stars to make examples of,” Saif said talking about businessmen fleeing India after defaulting on bank loans, “You should catch these guys and lambast them everyday. We are small people. The big game is happening somewhere else. We don’t know what the game is,” he said.

The actor further said the industry and celebrities are treated like dustbins by the media. “People say that this one did this, this one did that and the public is happy. It (Bollywood) is like a dustbin... You need people to blame but the real people who should be blamed are the ones who are stealing your money,” he added in the report.

Radhika, on her part, started off by saying how all through her short Bollywood career, she has had to struggle with words like ‘niche’ and ‘Indian’ tags vis-a-vis her choice of roles and her image. Obviously, when she landed this role, she was elated. She said: “I cannot thank Nikkhil (Advani) and Gaurav (Chawla; the director) for having faith in me. I am so grateful and so thank to be a part of Baazaar. I have never played a part like this before.”

Radhika plays a character called Priya Malhotra.
Radhika plays a character called Priya Malhotra.

Radhika plays a character called Priya Malhotra, who’s urbane, knows her job well and is willing to cross the line to get what she wants. Having a number of characters, cast in a traditional mode (remember her in Rajinikanth’s Kabali or Akshay Kumar’s Padman), Radhika is obviously excited about this one.

Meanwhile, Chitrangada has a smaller role and will appear as Saif’s prudent wife while Rohan’s Rizwan is a man of emotions where Saif’s Shakun is one of maths.

(With PTI inputs)

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