He came, he shot, he left. Saif Ali Khan shot for just five days in Calcutta for “15 minutes of screen time” in his maiden home production (working title Production No. 1). t2 caught up with the boss of Illuminati Films on the last day of shooting at Lahabari, off Amherst Street. Here’s Saif unedited on his first production and his last love...

You are back at the same address where you shot Parineeta’s dhunuchi sequence. What does being in Calcutta mean to you?

Yeah, yeah, I remember I shot here. Calcutta to me is my mother’s [Sharmila Tagore] hometown. That pretty much makes it my hometown also. Mothertown, maybe.... is that a word? This is where my grandparents lived. You know places like the Tollygunge Club, Alipore and (Rabindranath) Tagore is what Calcutta means to me.... And extremely fattening food! That’s a problem.... Hmmm.... And fish curry and rice. Last night we thought we were in New Delhi.... It’s a very charming city and every time we have come here and shot, has been special. More than many other cities that one has shot here in India.

Have you entered movie production to make the kind of films you want or is it just a business move?

I am not really a businessman. I should learn to be. I am not only going to be doing films for my production. I am open to working in outside films and scripts. But there comes a time when you have been working for a while, that you realise that you can make certain deals and plan something around this sellable commodity which is your name. So at this particular time, we are in partnership with Eros International and we have made a deal to produce two films. Yes, I do feel it’s an exciting time for me to take a little bit of creative control, in all humility. It’s not that we have all the answers and we know better. But it’s about enjoying the feeling of working for yourself. I am owning a part of the film and later maybe moving into production where we will own the film in totality. It’s a different feeling coming to work simply as an actor and it’s a slightly different feeling coming to work as an owner. The responsibility levels are obviously different and it’s also time after working for 18 years to work for yourself. I think for anybody, after having been a soldier, you would want to branch off into some form of ownership.

Since you mention being a soldier, on the sets of Parineeta you had mentioned making a film is like waging a war. Is that the case with your first home production as well?

We are already very proud of our product. One doesn’t know whether it will work or not. It’s a massive film, the biggest film I have worked in. We have shot across three continents and that is not a joke. We have shot in San Francisco, where no Hindi film has been shot before. The places we are shooting in Delhi and Calcutta, not many films have been shot. There’s London also.... So Europe, North America and India.... And shooting in north India is such a huge challenge.

Why did it take you so long to get into production? It was in 2004 when you had talked about joining the likes of Aamir and Shah Rukh...

It’s not a question of time. It was a question of the right team to come together. To meet the right partner. People take time to get married because you are waiting for the right person. So this production is in many ways a marriage I suppose.

At that time you had told us you want to start with an espionage film called Agent Vinod and a scary film about a tiger...

If I had told you that, it means I am consistent (laughs). It’s the second film I am making. With Sriram Raghavan. And even the tiger film is standing. Great, great, I am happy you remember that! The tiger story has been there all the time. But I don’t think we will ever make that into a horror film. I am deeply interested in the supernatural. So maybe a slightly spooky story.... Maybe a shoestring budget chilling tale.

Then why start with a romantic film like Production No.1?

We started because we realised that we can have as many ideas as we like but the directors will make our movies. So it’s a question of finding the right director we would like to work with. It’s not that we had a ready script. If we had the script, we would have chosen the director. Here we had the director — Imtiaz Ali. So the script had to be his. When he narrated a couple of ideas, we quickly zeroed in on this one.

What is this big idea?

It’s a very modern love story about why love today is not the most important thing in life. Things like career, distances and practicality play a very large role. I play a guy who is a bundle of contradictions and is a little bit confused about these things. He is a great guy but he is not that clear and also there’s a story which goes back into the past, a parallel track about how love used to be like. I am playing that role as well. It’s a small role, that of a Sardar, the part I shot here in Calcutta and will also be shooting in old Delhi. The Sardar character is actually the friend of the character I play in the modern time. Yeah, it’s nice and confusing…. I don’t know why he is a Sardar... perhaps because it’s interesting to play one. But I am tired of wearing that pagdi and I have only worn it for three days! So I have a lot of respect for Sardarjis. Apart from being an entertaining love story, the film will have a slight comment on the difference in the clarity of love in the past and in the precise reverse of today. Earlier, you would meet and talk a lot and eventually consummate. Today, people consummate and then ask what each other’s names are…. It’s extremely relevant.

Why did you pick Imtiaz Ali?

He reflects the sensibilities of this production. The kind of film he would be looking at would be a film we would be proud to present. His ideas are contemporary yet not offbeat. They are purely commercial, with an international sensibility yet a deep-rooted Indian story. We would be proud to call it our first production because it’s new enough and at the same time entertaining, touching and far-reaching enough. Imtiaz is also a brilliant director. There are not many like him. He is driven, passionate, obsessive. If you see him working, nothing is more important. He will burn himself for his film. He is reminiscent of passionate directors of the past. Like I jokingly said he is like K. Asif, who would work barefoot in the sand. Imtiaz is the only other director who would probably do that.

But Imtiaz chose not to cast Kareena opposite you in the film. Was that a problem?

This is an emotional thing that I would rather have Kareena in the film. But I wouldn’t argue with Imtiaz regarding this or push him to the point that it’s either her or the movie. Of course, as actors we would love to spend time together. It’s my first production and I would have been very happy to have her in it. When this film was conceived and started, Kareena and I had just met. If my first production had started now, then most certainly she would have been in it. We are much closer now. At that time it was a business decision and it seemed okay. It was just another movie. As our relationship grew, it seemed a big shame. But we realised that Imtiaz is the captain of the ship and for some reason, he thinks that Deepika and Deepika’s silence suit this character more. We must respect that and work as professionals. There are so many films that she is doing where I am not there.... There are so many films that I am doing where she is not there...

Why don’t you get someone to write a script with you and Kareena in mind and then you can produce that?

She’s a great actor and she’s at the top of her game and she’s the biggest star in the country. It’s hard to mix these things. It’s easier to choose the film you want to do and then see who suits the role. I would love to work with her. I enjoy working with her because I think she is very talented. We haven’t really worked opposite each other. LoC Kargil and Tashan you can hardly say they were our films. Tashan had Akshay Kumar opposite her and by the time the film got edited, we hardly had four scenes with each other. We have a film coming up for Karan Johar’s production now in November for Rensil D’Silva.

Any regrets about Tashan, that being the first film featuring the two of you after you started seeing each other...

No regrets... Everyone loved the idea when we started and it won’t be very manly of me to say that I don’t like the idea now that the film hasn’t worked. We signed on thinking that it will be the coolest film ever. It was a good idea. So no regrets at all. And at the risk of sounding a little melodramatic, that’s where I met Kareena and that’s why it will always be special to me. Let’s put it that way.

Apart from the Rensil film, what projects have you committed to?

We complete Production No. 1 first and then there’s Rensil’s film. There will be Agent Vinod after that. There’s a film I have signed with Ashtavinayak and we are in the process of finalising the script and director for that. There’s also a period movie which I am looking at.... It will be very contemporary in terms of action and treatment, which Homi Adajania will direct for us, after Being Cyrus.

Any plans of doing something with your mother and sister now that you can call the shots as a producer?

It’s not a bad production idea.... I can get them quite cheap, I imagine (naughty smile). The idea behind a production is to make entertaining movies. Let’s see.... There’s a time for everything. Parineeta seemed to have happened at the right time. And after Parineeta, to do Salaam Namaste seemed right. With a spiky haircut to hang out on the beach with some blond chicks in bikinis; it seemed right after Parineeta. After playing Shekhar, it seemed right to play Nick’s character. To do a film just for the sake of doing a film is not right. And Omkara has to happen in conjunction with something else. I am sure there will be a time to turn to something by Tagore and let’s cast Mum.... Making a film on my father [Tiger Pataudi] will be a great subject also. He refuses to tell the truth about his life story. His take is: ‘The truth cannot be known and I will not lie’. His point is you can’t do it while I am alive.

The days you have been shooting here have been synonymous with the Singur problem. Has it affected your thinking in any way?

Actually, I am not informed enough about the problem to make any sort of comment.

When are you and Kareena getting married?

Like I have always said that it is the natural progression for a relationship. Neither of us would like to be in a relationship which is frivolous and just for the moment. Marriage is something that will surely happen in the future but we are not sure when. Our focus is now work. It’s a deeply committed relationship and marriage is the logical end to it. But it’s hard to put a time on that.

You have had many relationships...

Many? (naughty smile)

We know of at least three...

That’s not bad for a 38-year-old, yaar (laughs)!

So what’s so special about this one, the one with Kareena?

Well, it’s the last one. How about that? That’s special enough.