By Radhika Bhirani
New Delhi, Sep 10 (IANS) Veteran actress Sharmila Tagore loves watching her son’s films as any mother does and feels his acting has improved phenomenally over the years. At the same time she says Saif Ali Khan is not the easiest of actors to work with.

“As an actor, Saif has grown by leaps and bounds. I think in ‘Love Aaj Kal’, his monologues are really good. And over time, he has become a very sensitive actor. I am really proud of him,” Sharmila told IANS in an interview.

Talking about some of her favourite Saif-starrers, the 62-year-old actress named films like “Love Aaj Kal”, “Omkara”, “Parineeta”, “Ek Hasina Thi”, “Hum Tum”, “Being Cyrus”, “Kal Ho Na Ho” and “Dil Chahta Hai”.

“They are all such different roles that he has played and in such a variety of films. I feel he has an energy in him that makes me want to see him on screen,” she said.

If Sharmila is to be believed, Saif is not an easy actor to work with and says she is confident that he would have been a menace for most of his directors.

“I really don’t know how the directors work with him. He is a difficult actor to work with. The directors probably pull their hair out. How it happens I don’t know, but I like what I see of him on screen,” she said.

The mother and son have featured together in “Aashik Aawara” (1993) and “Eklavya - The Royal Guard” (2007).

“He has been very lucky to work with people like Vishal Bharadwaj, Imtiaz Ali, Pradeep Sarkar and Farhan Akhtar, who have given him meaningful and meaty roles,” she added.

According to the doting mother of three - Saif, Soha and Saba, her son’s most forgettable role has been in “Tashan”, where he was cast with Kareena Kapoor. But rather than being extremely critical of his performances, she likes to watch his work like a regular audience.

“I am content to be just a mother to all my children. When I see a film, I see it as any other audience member. I react as an audience. If I feel there are issues with make-up or dialogue delivery, I tell him and he listens to them. But I believe in constructive criticism. So I give suggestions that they can build on, not something that they can’t do anything about,” she clarified.

While Saif branched out from being just an actor to being a producer for his last release “Love Aaj Kal”, Sharmila doubts his ability to manage financial issues.

“I can’t really give Saif the credit for being a producer. He may have contributed to the creative side of it, but the rest was all done by his partner Dinu (Dinesh Vijan). Saif doesn’t have the patience or inclination to manage finance. He doesn’t understand the concept of money. Dinesh is the one who kept it all within the budget and did a very credible job,” she said.

As of now, Sharmila, who is married to Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, is hoping for a family reunion soon as it’s been a long time since they have all met at one place.

“Such a meeting where all of us are together has to be impromptu. Sometimes if Saif can come, Soha can’t as she can’t dictate terms to her producers. But we see them individually. We met Saif at Interlaken some time back. All of us together is a little difficult but we might manage it soon as we have a wedding coming up in the family,” said Sharmila, who was recently seen in Amol Palekar’s Marathi film “Samaantar”.

(Radhika Bhirani can be contacted at radhika.b@ians.in)