MAKING A MARK
Photographer Mark Bennington captures candid shots of Bollywood actors in his latest book
“Shanoo Sharma, YRF’s casting director and I were sitting in a café a few years back when she asked a girl to come over. When Shanoo told her that she got a job, she jumped up and down,” says photographer Mark Bennington, revealing that ‘the girl’ who cried in joy was in fact, Parineeti Chopra. These and several other anecdotes, along with candid shots of some of Bollywood’s most famous actors find their way into Mark’s book — Living the Dream: The Life Of The ‘Bollywood’ Actor.
Mark’s story is filled with serendipity. “Back in LA, I did a lot of theatre and started getting offers for TV, but it wasn’t an easy job,” he says. Meanwhile, his grandfather urged Mark to take up photography, which he did, after he quit acting.
For more than 10 years, Mark did commercial photography but in 2010 — the year he turned 40, he came to India. “A photographer friend of mine told me that I should click Hollywood actors for a photo project, but I decided to do the project in India,” says Mark. With just two weeks left in his India trip, Mark decided to go to Mumbai. “People told me that if I wanted to meet the actors, I should go to Bandra, and lo and behold, I found a room… in Bandra! It was as if this was meant to be,” he explains.
A series of lucky connections later, Mark met several actors like Richa Chadha and Huma Qureshi, who weren’t well-known back then, thanks to Guneet Monga, the producer of Lunchbox. And remarkably, within six days, he managed to shoot 20 actors! Mark then returned to the US to make some money, but admits that “when he came back, he started meeting the bigger actors” after he became good friends with Shanoo Sharma. Salman Khan is among the 112 actors who are a part of Mark’s book and from the time Mark spent with him, he says that Salman is a nice person to hangout with. “I didn’t know Salman before I shot him for this project,
but we had a genuine connection. He is as normal as a famous person could be. But the people around him make it ‘not’ normal. Everyone is waiting on him and he is always surrounded by many people. It’s as if he is very calm, in the eye of the storm,” says Mark, who shot with Salman for two days in Pune, while the latter was shooting for Bodyguard.
While all the actors left a Mark on the photographer, Kareena Kapoor, he says, was very interesting to shoot. “Kareena exudes this aura of a diva but she is really down to earth, I have never met or seen anyone as stunning as her,” he says.
The book has a mix of actors, from character artistes to big actors. However, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan declined to be a part of the project. “I had to follow up with their managers for a few months, but they decided not to do the project and I respect their view. Johnny Lever didn’t oblige either,” he says.
Among all the actors he shot, Alia Bhatt was the last person he photographed. “I first met Alia when she was much more younger, before she started acting in films. Shanoo and I were sitting in a cafe and she walked in with her mother, Soni Razdan. When Shanoo told her that she wanted to make her a star, Soni laughed it off and said that she should wait… but look where Alia is right now!” exclaims Mark.
While most of the book was shot in 2011, things weren’t easy for Mark. He says, “I had to do my share of running around too. I had to wait for the actors to reply, which sometimes took weeks. I also had trouble finding a publisher and when I did find Harper Collins, it took two years to get the book published... but it was a great journey.”
Salman actually reminded me of an old friend of mine. When I shot him, I didn’t know him. But later, it felt as if we both were school friends and he went on to be famous... we had a genuine connection