An audition is a big deal for Bollywood stars, because they never have to do any. Actor Anupam Kher recounts one that didn't go as planned.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Oh, sir, sir!
00:02Sir, I mean...
00:04And I, in my mind, thought,
00:06Wow, Mr. Kher, what a performer!
00:30My agent, Ruth, told me that,
00:39Why don't you go for an audition?
00:41I said, 380, 400 films,
00:44you want me to go for an audition?
00:46Veteran from cinema?
00:48And he said, Anupam,
00:49that's the way it works here.
00:51And also, they are not
00:52questioning your acting,
00:53they're just seeing whether
00:54you're suitable for that role.
00:56So there was this film
00:57which came to me,
00:58which was about a mountaineer,
01:00and I think Orlando Bloom
01:01was playing that role,
01:02and I was supposed to be
01:03his assistant, his chaperone,
01:06or his person who was
01:07helping him from that area,
01:09from Nepal.
01:10And there was a scene,
01:11normal scene, and I said,
01:14Okay, now I must show this
01:16to the casting director,
01:18what I am capable of.
01:19So I worked on this audition
01:21in such a manner that
01:22I worked out the dialect,
01:24I worked out how much
01:25I will breathe,
01:26because we are climbing
01:27the mountain.
01:28I prepared it.
01:30Three-minute or two-minute
01:31audition, I must have done
01:33acting to the fullest.
01:36Oh!
01:37Oh!
01:38Sir!
01:40And I, in my mind,
01:42thought, Wow, Mr. Kher,
01:44what a performer.
01:46But they were pinned,
01:47and I looked at their faces,
01:49none of them were,
01:50they were in a coma.
01:54And so she said,
01:58Okay, that was nice.
02:00No, she said,
02:02she didn't complete the sentence.
02:05But can we do another version?
02:08So I said,
02:09Oh, she has no understanding
02:11of acting.
02:12She does not know
02:13what I have done right now.
02:14It's historical.
02:16So she said,
02:17Can you cut it down
02:18a little, please?
02:20So I said,
02:21Hmm, cut it down.
02:23So I thought I will be
02:24a smart aleck,
02:25and I said,
02:26How much, how many percent?
02:28She said,
02:29Maybe 99 percent.
02:38India has 28 official languages
02:41and more than 3,000 dialects.
02:44So when a Hindi film actor
02:46needs to cater to those
02:4828 official language people,
02:50he has to say a word
02:52and then do gestures with it.
02:54I went there and I was hungry.
02:57Now if I have to say that in Hindi,
02:59I went there and I was hungry,
03:01he has to cater to various audiences.
03:04So he will say,
03:05I went there and I was hungry
03:08and I thought.
03:09So there is a philosophy behind
03:11why there is an exaggeration.