Bollywood, in case you are unfamiliar, is Bombay’s film juggernaut, producing thousands of Hindi movies each year. The films are terrific, because the characters spontaneously burst into song randomly, and instead of sex scenes the characters dance in a suggestive manner. It’s almost exactly like my high school experience, except that everyone speaks foreigner!
Recently I came a step closer to my goal of appearing as a lanky dance god in a Bollywood production: an Indian film company cast me as a professor in one of their movies. Interestingly, I did not audition for the role, nor even know of its existence. Simply by being myself and talking loudly, an Indian film company visiting the United States noticed that I am so unbelievably white, like a Clorox bleach commercial, or the human embodiment of mayonnaise, that I would make a good dorky American professor in their film.
A day or two after vigorously agreeing to play a professor, it occurred to me that it was entirely possible I had signed up for a porno. Mind you, there were no immediate indicators of such. Nonetheless, whenever people want to film you, but offer very few details and pay in cash, you should at least consider this possibility. I mulled it over as I sat on the train from Philadelphia to New York.
Come to find out that the Indian film company was using the Wharton School of Business, at the University of Pennsylvania. Which calmed me down a good deal: this meant that I would be in a high-brow ivy league pornographic film, if such were the case.
Once on the actual set, however, things became even more confusing. The director and crew were all very nice and friendly, but only one or two of them spoke English. Everyone spoke Malayalam, meaning that I understood very little about my character, motivation, or virtually any stage directions whatsoever.
I was given a little direction, but not a lot. A very nice lady explained to me when to “shuffle” and when to “look surprised,” which are the main two things actors need in order to really triangulate their character. For the most part I had no idea about the context of the film’s plot or dialogue. Apparently there was a lot of it, though, because everyone kept talking a lot in Malayalam.
Here’s an acting trick I use. If I’m not sure what my character is supposed to be feeling, I just pretend that I’m constipated. So far no one has called me out on this. From the outside, it looks like I am being pensive. Maybe even “emotive.” Frankly, I think a lot of actors are just simulating various gastrointestinal states when they appear to be brooding on the silver screen.
In many ways my lack of foresight into the unfolding movie empowered me as an actor. In the first scene I merely stood at a podium, thinking about economics. But then, in a subsequent scene, two guys with guns and panty hose pulled over their heads rushed in and acted like they were going to shoot the place up. I had no idea this was supposed to happen—my reaction was so starkly believable that we had to re-shoot it a couple of times.
At the end of the scene one of the gunmen shot me in the face with what turned out to be a water pistol, which makes me think I was probably in a comedy of some sort. Their turnaround time is remarkable—they’ve been editing all footage as they go, so the film will debut later this month. In America my thirty or so seconds on screen will premier in select New Jersey cinemas.
This means that, very shortly, I will be able to watch the film in subtitles and thereby deduce what it’s about.
Andrew Heaton is a standup comedian and writer in New York. Standup clips, articles, and books can be found at www.MightyHeaton.com
