When Saif was thrown out of his debut film for being unprofessional

Saif Ali Khan. Image sourced from mid-day archives

Saif Ali Khan is considered as one of the most successful actors of Bollywood. Saif has been noted for his performances in a variety of genres - from comedy to action thrillers, and from crime drama to romances. Saif is also the recipient of several awards including National, Filmfare and India's fourth-highest Indian civilian award, Padma Shri.

However, not many of them know that Saif had a rough start in his career. In fact, he was thrown out of his debut film for being unprofessional. The film was a 1992 romantic drama, Bekhudi which was directed by Rahul Rawail. Saif was cast as the lead hero of the film. However, the Sacred Games actor was thrown out of the film by Rawail for being unprofessional. He was replaced by another debutant Kamal Sadanah.

The actor revealed the fact in a chat with mid-day's Sit with Hitlist. He said, "Kamal Sadanah was in the movie. So he [Rawail] threw out Kamal, and took me - for no fault of Kamal's. And then found out that I was worse, and threw me out. And took him!"

The reason? "I was just not subservient, sitting around all day. There could've been some attitude problem, which I myself wasn't seeing. I [probably] didn't understand how serious things are. You might come across as really cocky, because you think it's really funny, when it's not."

There were rumours that Saif was shown the door because he used to show up drunk on the set. But the actor categorically denied it.

Interestingly, Bekhudi marked the debut of another successful actress, Kajol. Bekhudi also starred Tanuja, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, and Farida Jalal. Its music was composed by Nadeem-Shravan. The film did not fare well at the box office.

Two years later, Khan made his acting debut with Parampara, a drama directed by Yash Chopra. However, the film was a commercial failure. His first hit came a year later, in 1994 with Yeh Dillagi, produced by Yash Chopra and directed by Naresh Malhotra. He shared screen space with Kajol and Akshay Kumar.

Isn't his journey inspiring? Catch up the full interview of Saif Ali Khan with mid-day's Sit with Hitlist here

Catch up on all the latest entertainment news and gossip here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates