If you saw The Amazing Spiderman , and if you were patriotic, or misguided enough (as I have to confess I was) to expect some fireworks from Irrfan Khan, you probably ended up kicking yourself. Sure, we weren’t foolish enough to expect histrionics (in a Spiderman movie?). The actor had warned us that it was not a big role, and that he did it because his sons wanted him to. But Irrfan is — no questions asked — one of our best actors, and we did hope that he would make his presence felt.

We should have known better, especially after all of Anil Kapoor’s talk about his role in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol ended with a four-minute whimper.

But then again, Irrfan Khan is not Anil Kapoor. To the eternal shame and disgrace of Hindi cinema, he is still not considered an A-list star in commercial terms. “Very good actor, ji , excellent,” a distributor told me, nodding his head graciously, soon after Paan Singh Tomar was released. But he won’t get us Rs 100 crore.” So Irrfan is not written or gossiped about as much as the Rs 100-crore gang, he doesn’t do too many interviews, he doesn’t brag about his work, and he delivers more than he promises. Director Marc Webb made a special video appearance in the TV show Issi Ka Naam Zindagi , to gush about Irrfan’s “wonderful reputation” and “wonderful abilities” and “his importance in Hollywood”.

That raised my hopes a little. But even my modest expectations turned out to be ambitious. Irrfan was efficient, competent… that sort of thing, but that was it. What struck me most about his performance as the cold-blooded Dr Rajit Ratha – I’m sorry to admit – was that his suit was kick-ass (hope he got to keep it!).

Why, I wondered, would he do such a role, after outings in Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire , Angelina Jolie-starrer A Mighty Heart , or that incredible performance in Mira Nair’s The Namesake?

Then again, why the hell not? Why shouldn’t he, if it gets him good money, and the enormous mileage that will accrue with the inevitable success of such a movie? Not to forget, if there’s a sequel, he might pop up there too.

Irrfan has said he did it for the experience of working in a big-budget Hollywood production. He doesn’t need to prove something with every movie of his; he’s got bigger roles to show for himself. Just like Anil Kapoor could afford to take the slim pickings in a Mission Impossible movie because he had that fabulous season with the hit TV show 24 .

Let’s face it, who wouldn’t want success in Hollywood? I don’t see it — as many do — as one more manifestation of our craving approval from the West. Simply put, Hollywood is the best-paying and most influential film industry in the world today, and an actor eyeing a place there is like a tennis player aiming for Wimbledon, or an IT engineer dreaming of Microsoft. No colonial hangover; just logic.

You shouldn’t quite believe those stars who insist they’re perfectly happy with their success in Bollywood.

Almost all the major stars, including some senior ones, have tried to jump over the Hollywood fence, by hiring agents and doing some kind of groundwork — some do so openly, some quietly.

What makes them hold their horses is not fulfilment with their lot here, but their egos, and of course, fear of failure. The story of how Shah Rukh Khan made Danny Boyle wait long hours before he refused Anil Kapoor’s role in Slumdog Millionaire is now part of Bollywood lore (and that spoof in Farah Khan’s Tees Maar Khan ).

When Hrithik Roshan, propelled by producer-father Rakesh, gave it a shot with Kites , he had to retreat hurt — and it must have hurt big time. But, at the very least, he had the guts to venture out there. Give him credit for that.

He’s in good company. I, for one, don’t particularly want to remember Naseeruddin Shah in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen .

Om Puri had a wonderful innings in the UK, and even got an honorary Order of the British Empire for his efforts, but good Hollywood roles seem to have eluded him.

Frieda Pinto is not a Bollywood star, but for the record, she’s hanging in there after Slumdog Millionaire , with eight other films to her name. She made a nondescript appearance in Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger , and Tarsem Singh’s Immortals , but she’s still there — and that’s what matters.

Mallika Sherawat’s Hollywood sojourn is a bit of a joke, so let me not say any more. Hopefully Bipasha Basu will do better with her role in Singularity , directed by Roland Joffe, where she plays a warrior queen.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is the only other Bollywood actresss to bag substantial roles, — and let’s give her credit for that — but she didn’t make any real headway after The Pink Panther and The Last Legion .

Her father-in-law, Amitabh Bachchan, meanwhile, has just done his first Hollywood role — a cameo as Meyer Wolfsheim, a flamboyant Jewish moneylender, in Baz Luhrmann’s production of The Great Gatsby .

Bachchan has forewarned us on twitter: “I play Meyer Wolfsheim for about a few seconds... by the time you look down on your popcorn to pick another morsel, I’d be gone from the film... he, he... kinda short service...”

So, I’m not going to raise my hopes when I head for The Great Gatsby . But I will when I catch Ang Lee’s upcoming adaptation of The Life of Pi , where Irrfan Khan plays the adult Pi.

I’ll do so even for Singularity . If nothing else, I’d like to see if Hollywood can make Bipasha Basu look sexier than we can.

shashibaliga@gmail.com

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW