American actor Kal Penn is excited about the new indie movement in India. While he was in Mumbai to promote his film Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain, he chatted with Divya Kaushik about his interest in films with compelling stories, doing more movies like The Namesake and his ‘thrilling’ role in Vince Gilligan and David Shore’s detective drama Battle Creek
It wasn’t the homecoming he had expected. Kal Penn’s visit to India after a long gap was rather shocking. When the actor came here to shoot for director Ravi Kumar’s Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain, he thought his dialogues were in English and had prepared accordingly. During their first rehearsal, while he was reading the lines with his scene partner, director Ravi Kumar told him that he had to speak in Hindi and Penn was taken aback. He, however, took the challenge and with the help of a dialect coach and all his cousins in India, prepared for his part and delivered his lines with perfection. The actor we know for roles like Dr lawrence Kutner in House and Kumar Patel in the Harold & Kumar series, was in Mumbai to promote the film which is based on the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. In the film, Penn plays the part of Motwani, a tabloid journalist on a mission to expose the Union Carbide safety issue which he believes is a deadly time bomb. While chatting with us on phone, Penn shared that what interested him most about the film was its story. “When I read the script, I found it extremely gripping and powerful. But the question that stuck me was why this story is being told now. I found out from the director that he didn’t just want to narrate what happened and what came out in news. He wanted to tell a story in a balanced way. He wanted to share with young people the untold events that led to one of the biggest chemical disasters of all times. As locals welcome the pesticide plant Union Carbide Corporation plans to set up in their city, an Indian journalist begins his informed struggle against this move. A lifestyle journalist from abroad tries to help him raise his voice against the potential threat of having a pesticide plant set up in a densely populated area. However, their effort fails and the factory continues to spew poison in the heart of Bhopal. The film tries to recreate the events that led to the catastrophe. I think the reason why some films work and some don’t is because of the story. I found this story really interesting and it was a challenge for me to play such a character and to speak Hindi. For me, this film has been an important part of my career,” said Penn. The film, that also features Martin Sheen, Mischa Barton, Fagun Thakrar and Tannishtha Chatterjee, has been in making for quite a long time and Penn says that the post production and editing was an important part of the process and that took a lot of time. Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain had a special screening at the Florence Gould Hall in Manhattan. “For many of the audiences at the special screening it was like being witness to an unknown chapter from history. While it was an edge-of-the-seat thriller trying to dig deep into what cause the gas leak, the film was also an incredibly emotional experience for the audience. No wonder the applause at the end was so spontaneous and so heartfelt,” he said.
The actor who began his acting career in several indie films is glad to note that the indie movement in the film industry has really picked up. “I see a lot of different kind of films doing so well in India and that is such a great sign. Films like The lunchbox are being talked about globally, that is really encouraging. I think there is a lot of scope for indie filmmakers in the film industry now and many good stories are being made into films. Keeping this in mind, we are hoping that our film will also be able to touch the hearts of the audience here,” said Penn, who earned a lot of acclaim as Gogol Ganguly in Mira Nair’s The Namesake. The actor says that he is looking forward to working with more Indian directors, provided he is offered something different. “Every character that I have played in TV series or in films has been really different. It is important to me as an actor that the role should challenge me in some way. It has to offer me something new to explore. If I am offered some interesting story with a different character, something that I haven’t played in the past, I will surely take it up. For instance, my role in Mira Nair’s The Namesake. I have also been Mira’s huge fan,” he said.
Penn was the first actor to be cast in CBS’ Battle Creek, a detective drama from Breaking Bad mastermind Vince Gilligan and House creator David Shore. The series is about how two detectives, with different views on the world, team up and with the use of cynicism, guile and deception, clean up the streets of Battle Creek. Penn plays a local detective in the series.
“I also visited the Battle Creek Police department to understand the police techniques and their way of working. I am enjoying the process of learning. I look forward to do more such thrilling projects,” he summed up.