Saif Ali Khan on the success of his film Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior

Saif Ali Khan played Udaybhan Rathod in the period drama titled, Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior, starring  Ajay Devgn and Kajol. His performance in this negative character was appreciated by the audience as well as the critics.

Speaking about the film, recently, Saif said that while he knew that Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior would do well at the box office, no one expected it to do the sort of business that it ended up doing. "There are certain aspects to the film. It’s a highly patriotic film and ticks all the boxes when it comes to being larger than life. It’s probably on paper, if there’s any film of mine that was expected to do this good, this was it. But no one thought Tanhaji could do this box office performance." 

Unfortunately, Saif was mired in a controversy after he made some disparaging remarks in an interview  about the film’s historical inaccuracy.  He said, "For some reason I didn’t take a stand… maybe next time I will. I was very excited to play the role because it’s a delicious role. But when people say this is history; I don’t think this is history. I am quite aware of what the history was. I would really like to part of a film industry that would take a stand that wouldn’t make mass kind of films like that. Films that would rather say ‘hey this is what history is’ rather than mould it to a certain kind of belief. But people say that is what runs and that’s what gives it the extra kind of bump, I mean it’s more than just action movie. There’s an idea there that seems to have caught on, but certainly a dangerous idea."

 Rumours  suggested that Saif's comments had upset Ajay Devgn. Reacting to that, Saif joked, "Bahot naaraaz tha. Uske ghar gaya, usko maine bohot maara. Taangein tod di uski, aaj kal chal bhi nahi paa raha hai