American studios are not beating a path to Indian actors’ doors — but a significant number of Indian actors are nevertheless making their mark in Hollywood.
Of course Kher’s journey towards this opportunity started years before the late Steve Jobs came up with the idea of the first iPhone, but the assignment capped what has been an extraordinarily high-profile year for Indian actors in Hollywood: 2011 was the year superstar Amitabh Bachchan was signed for Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Freida Pinto shared the lead with James Franco in one of the year’s major grossers, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Irrfan Khan shot for The Amazing Spider-Man, and Anil Kapoor will be seen in the Tom Cruise-starrer Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.
So it’s no longer an oddity to see Indian names in the credits of Hollywood blockbusters and big-banner projects. What’s next? More of the same, caution industry insiders — at least for now. More than a widespread crossover between Indian cinema and Hollywood, all signs point to the success of a few individual Indian actors who have made the effort to persist, network and most of all, to show up. “First, they need to be present,” says Jai Khanna, Irrfan Khan’s agent and manager of Brillstein Entertainment Partners, a premier Hollywood talent-management firm. “We have all tried to educate Hollywood with material, films, clips and press, only to fall short and not have the talent in the room to really connect with the project.”
Hollywood insiders cannot emphasise that point enough. Former tennis star Ashok Amritraj is the chairman and CEO of Hyde Park Entertainment, based in Sherman Oaks, California. It is an independent production company whose films have grossed a total of over a billion dollars worldwide. Amritraj explains that there’s not much glamour in what it takes to find acting work in Hollywood: “Hard work, banging on a lot of doors, sticking around.” New York-based casting director Avy Kaufman, who recently cast Irrfan Khan in Ang Lee’s adaptation of Life of Pi, says the reason Khan has found steady work in Hollywood is that “he has a lot of contacts here and he wishes to work here”.
That’s why Freida Pinto says she’s based “all over the world”, wherever work takes her, although she calls Mumbai home. Her manager in India, Anirban Das Blah, the managing director of KWAN Entertainment and Marketing Solutions, says, “Several Indian actors are interested in making a mark outside of India, but it involves long-term commitment that not everyone can follow through with.”
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Since bursting on to the silver screen in the 2008 sleeper hit Slumdog Millionaire, Pinto has emerged as one of the most successful Indian actors to work abroad. She has been seen in a variety of roles, none of them noticeably Indian but for the title role in Michael Winterbottom’s Trishna. She played a Palestinian in Miral, Dia, of unknown ethnicity, in Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, primatologist Caroline Aranha in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Princess Lallah in the Arab tale Black Gold, and Greek character Phaedra in Tarsem Singh’s Immortals, due out next month. That’s a conscious decision, according to the actress. “Once you fall into that rut of playing the same kind of character, of that same ethnicity over and over again, you keep getting offers like that, and it’s hard to stop that once you’ve started the fire yourself,” she said in an interview during a recent visit to Toronto.
Her approach earns kudos from Amritraj. “I like what she’s doing. She has managed her career well and has been able to break a little out of the Indian actress mode.” Gitesh Pandya, a Hollywood trade analyst and editor of Boxofficeguru.com, believes Pinto’s role in Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a huge breakthrough. “This is a role that would have normally gone to a white actress,” he says. The fact that she was chosen proves that “Hollywood is looking at her as an actress first and a brown person second.”
Two more recent examples: Bachchan will play Meyer Wolfsheim, the Jewish racketeer, in The Great Gatsby, and Khan the villainous Nels van Adder in The Amazing Spider-Man. The fact that Indian actors are being cast in several non-specific roles opens up a lot more options for them. Given their ethnicity, Indian actors won’t be considered for many parts in Hollywood, just as foreign actors can’t slip into just any role in an Indian film unless called for, like the British characters in Lagaan and Rang De Basanti, or the Americans in My Name is Khan.
But casting directors are increasingly open to using Indian actors in a greater variety of roles, as long as they fit the bill and are available. As Khanna says about his client, “It’s not imperative to hire an actor from India, but when presented with someone like Irrfan Khan, with an impressive body of work, a professional demeanour, he ultimately ends up on the short list at many studios.” Adds Kaufman, “If I’m casting a doctor, I’d consider every good actor, unless the script specifically says he has to be from Venezuela.”
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A key part of making oneself available is to understand how Hollywood works. Kher, who has acted in more than 430 films, says he never even got to see a script before signing most of them. In Hollywood, an actor must learn to run the gauntlet of agents, lawyers, unions and guilds to stay in the race. Khanna admits Hollywood is extremely selective and it’s not easy to get a good agent. But he stresses that finding good representation is imperative, and that actors need to show commitment and persistence. “Sending an email or contacting a rep via Facebook is complacent,” he says.
Then there are logistical issues like immigration. An actor’s visa status and ability to travel are some of the factors casting directors like Kaufman look at before drawing up their list. “They need to sort out their immigration,” advises Khanna. “Without an active O-1 visa, it’s too difficult to generate it from our end. Similar to clients in Canada, England and Australia, talent needs to make the process as easy as possible with limited obstacles and excuses.”
Once an actor gets here, there are technical differences as well. Amritraj is reluctant to compare the US and Indian film industries, but he points out that they require very different kinds of acting. “The acting, directing, pacing of the movie, the timing of comedy are all very different,” he says. Kher concedes that there are very few trained actors in India. For him, films like The Silver Linings Playbook are an opportunity to put his rigorous training to use, something he is not required to do in most of his films back home. When Kaufman visited India while casting Life of Pi, she was surprised to find that many actors were working in three or four films at the same time, “too many” according to her. Clearly, she has not talked to Kher, who says that during the initial stages of his career, he once shuttled between the sets of 57 films.
Adapting to Hollywood’s level of professionalism may be the greatest challenge for Indian actors. Many industry experts have horror stories to share, without naming names. Pandya has come across Indian actors who have cancelled media interviews or promotion commitments at the last minute. In Hollywood, “meeting your obligations must be 100 per cent,” he adds, even for the big stars. Khanna has had to deal with actors who were more concerned about the financial offer without reading the script. “Often I find that material is dismissed, based on a preconceived opinion, without ever having read the script or a call with the director.” He explains why he thinks actors like Pinto and Khan have been successful: “I believe they can set aside their ego and engage the process here. It requires chasing projects that can be career-changers.”
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While Indian actors are becoming more visible in Hollywood, it is due more to their own efforts and excellence rather than the industry seeking them out. All the big Hollywood studios are beating a path to India, but to make Indian films for Indian audiences. They are not desperate to cast Indians in Hollywood films, says Amritraj, not even to attract Indian audiences. “To market a film, you still need a Brad Pitt or a Bruce Willis.” And while India is producing some terrific actors, according to Amritraj, an actor who can carry a mainstream Hollywood international film at the box office still doesn’t exist. Kher agrees the individual examples don’t yet add up to a trend. Just because he got a film with De Niro, he says, “Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are not going to call me and ask when I will work with them”. He readily admits that he has done plenty of auditions for Hollywood films where he didn’t get the job simply because he was not seen to suit the role.
For many successful Indian actors, and especially big stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan or Kareena Kapoor, a career in Hollywood may be either impractical or unnecessary. As Khanna says, “There is reluctance to work here, as the success, or more so the lack of success, of a project can be detrimental to their career back in India. I do completely understand this and respect it.”
But the sheer size of Hollywood’s global appeal and influence will ensure that actors from around the world will hunger for a piece of its action. Here’s some perspective: Shah Rukh Khan’s Diwali release Ra.One, said to be the most expensive Hindi film ever, is reported to have cost about $30 million. James Cameron’s Avatar, the highest-grossing film in the world, reportedly had a total price tag of nearly half a billion dollars, and has grossed well over $2.5 billion worldwide. In the world of cinema, Hollywood is the Holy Grail.