Throughout his long and illustrious career, actor Saif Ali Khan has given several memorable performances. Despite being a mainstream star, he doesn't shy away from taking up off beat and grey shaded roles. Although he started out by playing chocolate boy characters but back in 2008, Saif starred in Abbas-Mustan's crime thriller 'Race' which changed the entire game for him.

He believes that 'Race' made him shift towards manly roles after playing too many boyish characters. As the film recently completed 14 years of its release, Saif told PTI, "At that point, I had done a lot of chocolate boy roles and Race was different. Ranvir was a man’s role and you’ve got to be able to pull that off! So I wanted to try and that was the real challenge. You don’t want to look like you’re trying – you just have to be the guy."

Talking about his character, Saif further added, "It was one of those roles where I didn’t have to do much apart from just being the guy, which also required having a certain presence. Ranvir was an opportunity to play a slightly more serious role and show a more mature side and I really enjoyed doing that."

He concluded by saying, "It was a more stable, responsible and quieter role. There was a certain maturity to playing Ranvir and I wanted to work with Abbas-Mustan. It worked out in a way that I ended up playing the elder brother’s role and I just really enjoyed it."