Saif Ali Khan was told 'leave your girlfriend or do the film'; the actor was removed from his first film: 'It was a moral choice'

Saif Ali Khan's first film was 'Parampara', but did you know that he was supposed to make his debut with 'Bekhudi' opposite Kajol. The duo had also shot together for a few scenes. But Saif was replaced in the movie by Kamal Sadanah. The actor had spoken about being removed from his first film. He revealed he was asked to leave his girlfriend if he wanted to do the film.



He has often confessed that acting didn’t come naturally to him when he first stepped into Bollywood straight after boarding school in England. Early on, he faced rejection after rejection, which pushed him to polish his craft. One of his biggest setbacks was being dropped from Rahul Rawail’s Bekhudi (1992), a film that was meant to be his debut.




An old interview clip of Saif, now resurfacing on Reddit, sheds more light on that turbulent time. The actor revealed that he was ousted from his very first project for personal reasons. In this interview, he was asked about his struggle in the industry. Reacting to it, he said, “Struggle ka matlab kya hota hai? Auto rickshaw mein baitho aur 10 chakkar kaato. Kisi ke office mein 3 ghante ke liye baitho. Ise struggle kehte hain. Meri struggle bhi thi lekin alag thi. Mujhe apni pehle film se nikaal diya gaya kyuki mere director saab ne bola ki you leave your girlfriend or you do the film. It was a moral choice."



Despite the setback, Saif insists he never looked at his journey as an uphill battle. When quizzed about what sets him apart from his peers, he admitted, “I haven’t studied much after school, maybe I will do that later. I think it is important. When I pay less attention to details that other people look at, like ‘what does your father do?’ People say that I am too open, even to strangers.”



At the time of 'Bekhudi', another controversy surrounded him, whispers that he showed up drunk on set. Speaking to Lehren back then, Saif said the accusations seriously damaged his image. “I feel he (Rahul) thinks that I am not interested in films, that I don’t want to work. Several rumours also started going around on, that I came to the sets drunk, that I kept sleeping on the sets. All this is old now but I was quite affected,” the actor admitted.