Saif's Shakespearean role

Page

Sawariya

@sawariyah

Inactive

Posted: 19 years ago

Saif's Shakespearean role
19th Mar 2006 21.00 IST
By ApunKaChoice Bureau

Hard to imagine the 'rockstar' of Bollywood playing a rustic guy with yellow teeth and a repugnant smile?

This is what Saif Ali Khan is playing in Vishal Bhardwaj 's adaptation of Shakespeare's 'Othello'. The movie, roughly titled 'Omkara', has Saif playing the character of the deceitful and double-talking Iago.

In stark contrast to the characters Saif has played in his last few films, his character in 'Omkara' will be a UP ka bhaiyya who speaks in rural lingo and sports a very short haircut.

In an interview to a news agency, Saif says he was tired of playing westernized characters and shooting in foreign cities. In 'Omkara' he gets a chance to do something entirely different from what he has done so far. And he had to shoot in rural areas and small-towns of Uttar Pradesh.

Also there is hardly any interaction between his character and any woman in the film.

"In Omkara, my character uses other people's frailties and blind spots to his own advantage. He has no interaction with women. I'd say he's...impotent," Saif is quoted in an IANS report.

Saif, who has studied Shakespeare in London, says adapting the English bard's stories is Vishal Bhardwaj's forte. He also wishes to do something bigger with the filmmaker in the future.

"I think Vishal and I need to do something more larger-than-life next time. Maybe 'Hamlet'?" Saif is quoted.

In the past, Vishal has made Maqbool which was an adaptation of Macbeth.

'Omkara' stars Ajay Devgan as Othello, Kareena Kapoor as Desdemona and Vivek Oberoi as Cassius. The movie also features Konkana Sen , Bipasha Basu and Naseeruddin Shah .

Vishal Bhardwaj says the movie's title 'Omkara' may be changed.