For the last 2-3 years, the web world has managed to put a great impact on Indian filmmakers as well as the viewers. Masses have shown a brilliant response to the web world, be it YouTube or any particular video streaming site/app. Though in no time many small content creators shifted their base to the web, hardly any mainstream Bollywood’s actor or director showed much interest in it. But in 2016, Saif Ali Khan became the first A list actor to agree to appear in a Netflix original. The original series is titled Sacred Games and it helmed by Anurag Kashyap . A year-and-a-half and completion of the shoot later, Saif says the medium, by its very nature, offers much more creative satisfaction to artistes.
"It is liberating as an actor to have a platform [like Netflix] to act on. Vikram [Vikramaditya Motwane] and Anurag [Kashyap] have been wonderful directors. With no censorship, this platform offers creative freedom. That's what makes it so exciting," says Khan, who plays cop Sartaj Singh, in the adaptation of Vikram Chandra's novel by the same name.
With a 25-year-long career in movies behind him, the actor says there is a marked difference in the way a web series is shot vis-a-vis a Bollywood project. "The art directors and other technicians had a meticulous approach, which is rare to see in films. The locations where we have shot are better and more authentic than most movies that I have worked on, so far. You relate to the character differently when you are in a live location."
Staying true to its theme of Mumbai's underbelly, the gritty series that also features Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte , was shot in the bylanes of the city.
