We all have to kind of slightly police ourselves: Saif Ali Khan

Mumbai: Saif Ali Khan said that controversies around his 2023 film ‘Adipurush’ and OTT series ‘Tandav’ have made him more careful about picking his projects as he wants to stay away from trouble. The backlash around ‘Adipurush’ was ‘unsettling’, said Khan recently at the ‘India Today Mumbai Conclave 2024’.

“It’s a little unsettling because there was a case and there was some kind of a decision taken by the court that said an actor is responsible for what he says on screen. So technically, if you say something, you could get a case against you, saying you shouldn't have said that which is a lot of pressure. So, you try and tell the producer that, ‘Listen, if anyone gets in trouble, it’s going to be you’. But I don’t know how covered you actually are,” he said.

‘Adipurush’, an adaptation of the epic ‘Ramayana’ by filmmaker Om Raut, had courted a massive controversy last year and was panned on social media over its poor VFX and colloquial dialogues, which also led to protests and police complaints against the makers. In the movie, Khan played the role of Lankesh (Raavan), opposite Prabhas as Raghav (Ram) and Kriti Sanon as Janaki (Sita), which didn’t go well with many.

“We all have to kind of slightly police ourselves and be a bit careful, otherwise, there could be trouble. So, it’s unsettling. But you also understand that there are certain areas, for example, religion. You just stay away from that. And there are many stories we can tell. We’re not here to make trouble. So, we’re like, ‘Fine, we’ll just stay completely away from’,” he said.

Before ‘Adipurush’, Khan’s 2021 series ‘Tandav’, a nine-episode political thriller also starring Dimple Kapadia and Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub, was embroiled in a massive political storm for allegedly hurting the religious sentiments of Hindus.