Exclusive | Saif Ali Khan On 20 Years Of 'Omkara,' Working With Vishal Bhardwaj and His Nixed Nude Scene

"I want you to stand in front of the mirror. Somebody will help you with a hammer... smash the mirror and then hopefully it will be fractured into schizophrenic pieces of your face. Your hand would have bled...rub the blood across your forehead and anoint yourself with it. You're going to get him, and that’s it."

20 years after Omkara, Saif Ali Khan recalls to The Hollywood Reporter India the filming of a particularly long scene from the film like it happened yesterday. He remembers the step-by-step instructions director Vishal Bhardwaj had outlined to him, where his character, the antagonist Ishwar "Langda" Tyagi, delivers a revenge-filled monologue facing a mirror.

This is one of the many vivid memories the actor carries of the cult film and the making of it. Now, two decades later, he reflects on it in depth. Khan recalls what it was like embodying a starkly different character for the first time, working with Bhardwaj and the scene he almost shot naked.

"I got to create things that we never would have in the other lovely fun rom-com type movies we were doing,” says Khan. To him, playing Langda Tyagi came with a sense of excitement. From the script to the clothes he wore, the novelty of the character not only allowed him to express a different side of himself, but also create a blueprint for other actors.

"To get the chance to speak a new language and to dress up as somebody so different was really liberating. It was exciting to get into that kind of acting. And maybe what changed was that it created a kind of a template for other actors too."

Getting into character also meant trading the comfort of his everyday, glossy hero image for an entirely new look. "Even if you’re a mainstream hero whose haircut is quite valuable and creates a feeling of security, to suddenly cut it all off," he says, was quite a massive change.

In fact, Khan remembers his mother, Sharmila Tagore, expressing apprehension towards the director. She hoped he would turn out to be a sensible filmmaker, worried the part would require her son to undergo major changes. "It was loving advice," he says. "And Vishal was loving."

He then revisits the long, mirror-facing monologue from the film, and Bhardwaj's bold idea of shooting it nude. "I remember Vishal ji asking, 'Would you mind doing it naked?'" To this, Khan recalls responding, "Listen, if you direct me naked, I’ll do it!"

Ultimately, he kept his clothes on.

Khan also recalls a particular scene where the happiness of Konkona Sen Sharma, playing Langda Tyagi's wife, Indu, seemed misaligned with the story — as Iago, the antagonist in William Shakespeare's Othello on whom Khan's character was based, was supposedly impotent. To stay true to the dynamic, the actor remembers discussing shifting the placement of a love-making scene with Bhardwaj.

“It was the first time in my acting career where... what people call the moment before the scene starts, that became important,” he says.

“You don’t even notice these things [scenes] when they’re done properly, but they have to be created and thought about. That creative environment was fantastic,” he says.

An adaptation of William Shakespeare's Othello, Omkara was a transplantation of the tragic play to the heartland of India. A tale of manipulation, jealousy and caste prejudice, the film featured Ajay Devgn and Kareena Kapoor Khan in leading roles as Omkara (Omi) Shukla and Dolly Mishra, alongside Saif Ali Khan as the Iago of this story. Actors Vivek Oberoi, Sen Sharma and Bipasha Basu also played supporting roles.

Watch the full interview on The Hollywood Reporter India Youtube channel