5 Times Saif Ali Khan Made Supporting Characters The Best Part Of The Film

Although he has the proverbial ‘Khan’ as his surname, Saif’s Bollywood trajectory has not only different from the Khan triumvirate but also as interesting and unpredictable as his bold choices. Written off as another run of the mill chocolate boy who is in the industry due to the influence of his mother Sharmila Tagore, his journey has been anything but smooth.  

He has failed several time as a lead but that had hardly deterred him from pushing the envelope. While there are many roles of his as a lead that are majorly underappreciated, he has shined bright in supporting roles. As a Bollywood A-lister himself, he never shied away from playing the second fiddle when meaty roles came his way. From Kachche Dhaage to Omkara, these supporting character played by him are one of the biggest assets of this film and he has made this supporting character remarkable by the sheer brilliance of his performance.

This Ajay Devgn starrer was probably the first time people set up and took notice of ‘Sharmila Tagore’s son’ and saw a glimpse of the actor behind the soft curls and ineffable charm that they were quick to write off. Matching the intensity of Ajay Devgn in this action drama was no mean task but Saif was a treat to watch as Dhananjai Pandit, the urban and yuppy stepbrother. He literally fit the role like a glove.

Again this was a movie where R. Madhavan was literally exuding charm in every frame. Though the film was not a major hit at the box-office but has achieved somewhat of a cult following over the years and Saif deserves a major chunk of this adulation. As the ‘foreign return’ , suave Rajeev ‘Sam’ Samra, Saif was one of the coolest characters of the mid-2000s.

This film changed a lot. It brought the wave of coming of age dramas and changed the way we looked at male bonding stories but above all it changed Saif’s career trajectory. His portrayal of Sameer provided such a strong and much-needed contrast to the character of Akash and Jai that makes the film the cult it is. Whether it is his romantic quotient or his sharp wit, he is an asset in a movie in which, again, lead Aamir Khan was giving a performance of a lifetime.

One of the things about Shahrukh Khan is the fact that it is almost impossible to focus on any other character in the frame, but Saif was such an amazing exception in Kal Ho Naa Ho. He not only stood his ground as Rohit, but made the film as much about his character as it was about Shahrukh and Preity’s character by sheer brilliance of his performance.

Everybody who thought that Saif was only fit for playing the urban or NRI yuppy and the quintessential charming gentlemen literally had to swallow their words after seeing him in Omkara.  First credit probably goes to the visionary director Vishal Bharadwaj for being able to see Saif playing the antagonist Langda Tyagi, but what Saif did with the character was beyond anybody’s imagination. Shattering his urban he seamlessly blended into the role of this cunning and conniving village goon with an elan that shadowed some of the strongest performances by Ajay Devgn and   Kareena Kapoor who were the main leads of the film.

Honorary Mention: His performance as the second fiddle in the infamous Blackbuck row would probably be his most talked about supporting venture outside films, but that is a discussion reserved for another day!