As โOmkaraโ completes 20 years this month, Saif Ali Khan took a trip down memory lane and dropped a hilarious behind-the-scenes memory from one of the movie’s most iconic sequences.
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The actor revealed that director Vishal Bhardwaj had asked him to perform the famous mirror monologue without clothes.
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“I remember one incident from the film. There was a kind of long dialogue in front of this mirror. And I remember Vishal ji saying, ‘Would you mind doing it naked?’ It was a very exciting thing, but I was a bit conscious because there was a huge crowd on the set. So I remember saying to him, ‘Listen, if you direct me naked, I’ll do it.’ And he said, ‘No, I won’t.’ So, yeah, that was the funny part,” he said.
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Reflecting on the decision, Saif admitted he regrets not going through with the director’s bold creative vision.
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“Even now, when I look back, I wouldn’t have minded. Maybe I should have, in the sense that he shoots from the back, in silhouette. I think it would have looked great. Since we were doing new things, this would have been something. Yeah, I mean, I’d do it today.”
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The actor added that Bhardwaj made a massive, last-minute creative switch right before filming the scene. “There was a long dialogue where I was saying, ‘You haven’t made me the Bahubali, and now I’ll do this,’ etc., making very explicit his ideas of revenge to the mirror. At the last minute, he came up to me on set and said, ‘I don’t want you to say any dialogues. I’ve got an idea.'”
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Also read: SRK gave us full creative freedom for โKartavyaโ: Saif Ali Khan
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“So he said, ‘I want you to stand in front of the mirror. I’ll come in on a trolley behind you, we’ll give you some metal in your hand, something heavy, like a hammer, and I want you to smash the mirror yourself and break it. Hopefully it’ll fracture into these different pieces of your face. Your hand will bleed from the impact of hitting it, and I want you to rub the blood across your whole forehead, anoint yourself with blood, and you’re going to get him. That’s it. You don’t need to say any dialogues.’ And I thought, ‘Yes, you’re right. I don’t need to. This is the whole scene in one shot.’ And how economical and clever. So there were lots of things like that happening,” Saif reminisced.
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Saif also previously addressed widespread reports that Aamir Khan was the original choice to play Langda Tyagi in the film. He revealed that Bhardwaj chose to pick another actor after Aamir requested too many script alterations and changes.
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An adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Othello, โOmkaraโ stands as one of Hindi cinema’s most critically acclaimed literary films. Set in rural north India, the storyline deals with intense themes of power, caste, and patriarchy. Saif’s transformative performance as antagonist Langda Tyagi remains the most celebrated role of his career.
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Saif was last seen in Shah Rukh Khan and his wife Gauri Khanโs production “Kartavya”.