`Portrayal of Saif, Kareena in Agent Vinod unconventional`

Mumbai: On the eve of release of the spy thriller `Agent Vinod`, director Sriram Raghavan says that the audience will be "surprised" to see the other side of real life couple Saif Ail Khan and Kareena Kapoor on the screen.

Since the time they started dating, Saif and Kareena have acted together in two films, namely `Tashan` and `Kurbaan`, however, both the movies failed to click with the audience. "For us that was (pairing Saif and Kareena) something we were conscious of....But it did not scare me...I took it as a challenge. Here he (Saif) is playing a spy, don`t know much about him, his past, what he would do next, while Kareena plays a mysterious girl who Saif encounters in Morocco. I am not making a love story with them, I am making a plot driven film," Raghavan told PTI in an interview. The Saif and Kareena-starrer spy thriller is scheduled to hit the screens tomorrow. "Probably, viewers would expect something...I hope we kind of a defy that and so they would be like surprised seeing a different kind of a relationship that they have seen (between the two). Even the audience would forget that they are a real life couple. They would be seen in a different way..," he said. The director said it was Saif`s idea to cast Kareena opposite him in `Agent Vinod`. "Saif and I thought of coming together with a spy movie as we both liked the old `Agent Vinod`. The fact that Saif has his own production house and Kareena as his friend and also that she was not cast in `Love Aaj Kal` so Saif asked is there a role for her, so I told him let me finish the script first," Raghavan said. "I did not want to give Kareena a role just like that, I wanted to give her a good role as she is a fantastic actress. So if they are real life couple or not I don`t care as long as I get two good actors in my film. My only worry was that she might say is the role good enough for me, but she was happy with the role," Raghavan said. His earlier two movies, `Ek Hasina Thi` and `Johnny Gadar`--both thrillers--did not have much of song and dance, unlike `Agent Vinod` which has an item number, a Mujra and a few other songs. "The earlier movies were small and I had then thought that I don`t need to incept song and dance, but `Agent Vinod` is a big adventurous film. I am still to get over my inhibition of getting my hero suddenly burst into a song and dance....Iam not good at that, though I love watching it," the director said. Justifying the need for song, Raghavan said, "Agent Vinod needs flamboyant music. The song takes the story forward and does not just interfere in between...with each song something else is happening". On Kareena`s maiden mujra, the director said initially they were undecided whether the actress would feature in it. "Initially we were not sure. She plays a character in the film and we did not want her to suddenly burst into a Mujra, like a typical Hindi film. We did not want tha...but we got that link," he added. PTI