Behind the Scenes of a Bollywood Blockbuster - part one
Before embarking on my epic overland journey from India to Germany, I set my sights on a couple of key experiences that I'd like to have in each country. While it's important to be flexible and open to new experiences, I think it's also important to do a bit of healthy goal-setting; things that will keep you motivated during the tough days that you inevitably face while on the road. One of these goals is to get my face into a Bollywood film.
This might sound like a pretty lofty goal, but being the world's largest film industry means there is a lot of work for extras, and there is a particular demand for westerners – to the point where there are scouts that lurk around the tourist areas of South Mumbai approaching white-skinned tourists to shoot a scene or two. It's almost a rite of passage for westerners visiting Mumbai.
I'm staying at Arma Hostel in Bandra East when I meet two English girls called Frankie and Hannah, who have been approached by such a scout. When they tell me this news, I ask them if they can get me in. Frankie sends a couple of messages and tells me that I need to make an audition video. Apparently I just need to say my name, where I'm from, my age and my height.
Okay then.
Frankie films me on her phone, as I announce “Hi, I'm Donovan Murphy, from Sydney, Australia. I'm 27 years old and 175 centimetres tall.” Frankie sends the video and we wait for a response.
“The part is for a soldier in the US Army. Tell him to look tough.”
Take two.
I stand with my feet a little further apart, puff my chest, flare my shoulder blades, and raise my voice a little, trying my best to look like cocky and brash. “Hi. I'm Donovan Murphy! I'm 27 years old and come from Sydney, Australia! I'm 175 centimetres tall and weigh 87 kilograms. My hobbies include rugby and hiking!”
Slight embellishment of facts. I used to play rugby – badly – and I hike maybe a few times a year.
Again, Frankie sends off the video, and this time we are told:
“That's good, but we need more light. Do it again somewhere with better lighting. I liked the part about the rugby.”
We go searching for somewhere in the hostel with plenty of light, and the best place turns out to be the corridor leading to the dormitories. I feel like an absolute wanker going through this routine, especially while people are trying to sleep right next to me, but then I suppose the film industry is built on big egos, so I just try to feed on that.
We send through take 3 and wait.
Bingo.
I'll have to shave my beard for the “role”, I'm told. I don't like the idea of being beardless, but they grow back pretty quickly, and it's definitely a worthy sacrifice for the experience of a lifetime! Nevertheless, I hold off on shaving it for now. It's a film studio. Surely they have hair and makeup artists for that shit.
Read about my bus crash in Mumbai
Our “scout” arranges to meet us outside our hostel at 8am Monday morning. He turns up at 8:45. His name is Imran. He is in his mid 30s, bald, a bit stocky, and very stressed out. That final point is a theme that I will see repeated multiple times throughout the day. The film industry, from what I can gather, is a highly-strung business full of highly-strung people. He complains that he doesn't know the area where we are staying and he got lost on the way. The train line that shoots north through Mumbai's suburbs doesn't just divide them physically. It's a rich-poor line as well. To the west of the train line is glamour; to the east, slums. He never goes east. More on this in a later post.
As we drive, Imran explains to us that we will be working with a very famous actor called Salman Khan. That name means absolutely nothing to the three of us at the moment, but Imran tells us that he's a superstar, and that every movie he's in is a smash hit at the box office. I Google him, and it seems Imran isn't bullshitting us. According to Forbes, he's the highest paid celebrity in India. And apparently he's known for getting his shirt off on screen and showing off his muscles. What a thing to be known for! The movie is called Tiger Zinda Hai, which is the sequel to Ek Tha Tiger, one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films of all time. It's a big-budget spy action thriller, a la James Bond.
Imran says that he's going to take me to get shaved, but in his rush he forgets to do it. We pull into Yash Raj Film Studios at 9:30am, and Imran rushes us upstairs to a makeup room. The place is absolutely frantic; dozens of actors, extras and costume designers rushing about like the apocalypse is coming.
One of the costume designers looks at me and says: “US?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess so?”
“Take this,” she orders, and shoves a US Army uniform at me.
I go into the dressing room and put it on, and then take a seat and absorb the chaos. Frankie has also been put into a US Army costume. Hannah has not been put into a costume at all. Interesting.
I notice two tall, photogenic blondes also wearing US Army uniforms, one male and one female. They are posing in front of the makeup mirrors, preening their hair, and generally strutting around like they're the big stars. I gather that they aren't, in fact, big stars, but they do seem comfortable in this environment. They're probably regular extras – maybe they even have a line or two of dialogue!
Two costume designers come up to me and start speaking tersely with each other. I can't appear as a US soldier with a beard. They send me to get changed again, this time into a jet black shalwar kameez (much like the white one I'm wearing in my profile picture). The shalwar kameez is the national dress of Pakistan, and is also widely worn in India and parts of Iran. But for the purposes of Tiger Zinda Hai, it's an ISIS uniform.
Five minutes later, they decide that this won't do either. I'm too white and my hair is too red to be an ISIS member. I go for another costume change. Now, I'm going to be a technician at the Al Faridoon Oil Refinery in Iraq. Alright then.
Once we're all dressed, it's time to stop for breakfast. We filter out into the corridor, where a bank of chafing dishes have been set up with a selection of Indian cuisine. Sadly, nothing to satisfy my aggressive pepper palate, but a good selection of nutritious and filling (and clean!) foods.
Over by the elevator, Frankie and Hannah have picketed Imran. Why hasn't Hannah got a role? I thought we were in this together. Imran is getting animated, telling Frankie that he never said anything about Hannah having a role. There has been a misunderstanding. Frankie says she's only in it if Hannah is in it too. It's just a bit of fun for her and she wants to share it with her friend. She gets back into her regular clothes and they leave. Imran is seething, and he comes to me and starts bitching – Frankie had a couple of lines of dialogue and has just thrown a huge spanner in the works by storming off.
Read about my Tinder date in Goa
After breakfast, the 20 or so extras in the US Army uniforms all disappear for filming, and I'm left in the makeup room with four Russians. Two dressed as ISIS soldiers and two dressed as technicians like me. A few of them speak English, so we chat a little, but mostly, we just sit. And sit. And sit some more. A whole lot of sitting. One of the Russians was smart enough to bring a book. This clearly isn't his first time.
After a couple of hours, the two tall, blonde prima donnas from earlier return to the room and join us in our sitting marathon. A few other staff wander in as well. The 20 extras from the morning are either still filming or are finished for the day, because they don't come back. We stop for another food break – we have 5 throughout the day in total.
As we sit in the makeup room eating, he walks in. Salman Khan. I've met a fair few famous people, but none have made such an instant impression on me as this actor – who I had never heard of until this morning – makes when he walks in the room. This guy has Presence™. You can feel the breath being sucked out of the room. Religious people are often referred to as God-fearing, and I'm pretty sure that I've just seen a live enactment of what would happen if any of the world's gods appeared before their believers. The awe. Wow. The only person in the room who isn't totally gobsmacked is me. I just find the whole scene fascinating.
Salman Khan. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
Everyone shifts to one side of the room, as Salman sits in a makeup chair, totally nonplussed by the reaction. I'm sure he's used to seeing people get starstruck. One thing that I've always thought would be difficult about being a celebrity is the amount of artificial interactions you would have with people. Everywhere you go, you meet people that already have an opinion of you, whether positive or negative, even though they know nothing about who you really are; only what they've seen on TV or read in magazines. Dealing with starstruck fans who idolise the very ground you walk on. Dealing with haters. Dealing with people who want to ride your coattails on their own journey to fame and fortune. I don't think I would like it, but then I guess humans are a pretty adaptable species, so I'm sure I'd adjust.
The only person who hasn't shifted is one of the blonde Russian prima donnas. She continues sitting in her chair eating a plate of dahl. But her arrogant veneer is stripped away in a split second when Salman Khan turns to her and – quite politely – asks if she could not eat right next to him while he's getting his makeup done. “Okay!” she squeaks, and scampers across the room. I'll be honest, it brings a little sadistic smirk to my face. Unwarranted arrogance is a trait that I detest.
Salman is in and out in 10 minutes, only needing a little foundation. For a 51 year old, he's in great shape and holding his age quite well. He disappears for some filming, while for the rest of us, the sitting marathon continues.
Stay tuned for part two of this story, as I finally make it onto the set and get my big chance at fame and fortune!
Heya, I really enjoyed this one a lot and was wondering if you want me to nominate it for @ocd! If you'd be good with that, just let me know right here!
I'd absolutely love that!
Alright, nominating for tomorrow!
I didn't realise that @ocd was such a strong curation guild! Just increased the value of my post roughly 6x... Now I'm extra grateful! Thanks so much!
As always, your writing is amazing! Can't wait for part 2 :) Btw, if you upvote the qurator posts at least 7 times a week they will give you much higher upvotes ;)
Oh that's awesome to know!
Go upvote @k-a-s-i-a at 14 minutes from the time I post this comment to maximise your curation rewards!
My upvote power is steadily declining but since kasia's post is pretty great I will give an upvote in a few minutes and see about that curation reward in a week ;)
Having any upvote power to speak of is something that I am still yet to experience! I suppose I will get my first taste of it in 5 days, assuming Steem doesn't tank before then!
You can check your voting power here: https://steemworld.org/@donnymurph
Each 100% upvote uses 2% of your voting power, I try to not to have my voting power fall below 80%, this is why in the end of the day often all I can give are 25% or 50% upvotes :D
I am actually excited to see how much the curation reward will be, when finding and upvoting a few posts a week before they get viral buying some SP Delegation might even be worth it..
What I mean is, my vote is only worth $0.01 at the best of times. I've yet to experience being able to give a bigger vote than that.
I'm pretty curious about the curation reward as well; the whale that's voting on kasia's posts every time - glitterfart - is collecting 300SP per week in curation rewards, but I don't know if they're upvoting more than once per day. If they're only voting once per day, that's a 40 SP reward per post.
I found this tool to calculate the curation reward, it seems like even for kasia's post it's only a few cents https://s3.amazonaws.com/yabapmatt/bottracker/curation_calculator.html
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Another great story. I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for the continuation!
Love the part where Salman Khan asks the prima donna to move away from him. I wonder how much that kind of stardom changes one's general expectations about other people and how they should act around you. As humble as one might start out to be, I can imagine years of constant deference and fawning could give anyone a bit of a god complex.
Yeah, I'd imagine so. I can't claim to know much about him, other than he's got a great physique and a commanding presence, although his Wikipedia page lists some pretty serious controversies.
He was convicted of culpable homicide for driving his car into a bakery while drunk, killing a person that was sleeping on the ground outside and injuring 3 more. Jailed and then released on bail.
He was also convicted of poaching an endangered species of antelope and using firearms with an expired license. After being jailed and released on bail, he was later acquitted by a higher court due to insufficient evidence.
After the Pakistani terrorist attacks in Mumbai, he made some very controversial comments saying that the attacks were not the fault of Pakistan, and accusing Indian security forces of failing to do their job.
He has also publicly supported Yakub Memon, perpetrator of the deadly 1993 Mumbai bombings, and stated that it's his brother, Tiger Memon, who should be hanged.
Most Indian citizens that I met believe that he is very much affiliated with the mafia, and that he essentially owes his superstardom to them.
On the flip side, he has a charity that provides aid for underprivileged children, paid US$62,000 to release about 400 prisoners who had completed their terms but didn't have enough money to pay the legal fees, and had the profits from his highest-grossing film distributed amongst the farmers of India.
Whatever you make of all that, one thing is for sure: he's a very colourful character!
I have watched one of his movies, Sultan, and it's enjoyable. Although sadly plagued with the kind of overtly feel-good, all's well that ends well kind of ending that ruins most Hollywood films.
I better get writing on the continuation! I'm really having to dig deep for a lot of these stories. Even though I write in the present tense, this was 6 months ago. Consider the finer details as approximations rather than gospel.
Thanks for the info. Definitely an interesting character.
Totally understand about approximating the details. I may post a few of my own experiences here soon, and after 5 years the details will definitely be approximate! Luckily I kept a sort of email-based blog (to family and friends) that I can refer back to to get at least some of them right.
Brilliant writing and really hilarious character sketches! Looking forward to part 2.