DROP THAT ACCENT! NOW YOU’RE A REAL INDIAN
Beyond a few big names, Indian actors and Indian references are organically growing in the West
Gone are the days when Indian or Indian-origin actors were restricted to blink-and-miss roles in the West, often forced to speak in a way that was considered ‘authentic Indian’ by studio executives. Now, whichever way you turn your head, you’re likely to see Indian faces and/ or Indian settings in films and TV shows made in the West, and a character’s details — accent, style etc — are tweaked to fit the actor cast in the role.
This scene is now much bigger than isolated top names such as an Irrfan or a Priyanka Chopra or a Deepika Padukone getting plum roles. While the 1985 Channel 4 show Tandoori Nights (fronted by Saeed Jaffrey, playing a restaurant owner in London) was like a brown island floating in a white sea, now we have Bollywood star Anupam Kher in a leading role in Mrs Wilson, a period drama on British TV; the USbased actor Karan Soni getting a four-film contract for a superhero franchise; the theme of Raj-era India recreated for the American show Westworld; and have Sherlock Holmes solve the murder of two Indianorigin Americans on the show Elementary. So either Indian actors are being cast or Indian references are cropping up.
Kher feels that the West no longer sees India or other South-East Asian countries through the lens of stereotypes. “A lot has changed,” he says. “Naturally, there’s a lot more awareness now. So, you no longer see Indian characters who have that ‘typical’ Indian accent. Everyone knows no Indian talks like that. I mean no one puts up an ‘Indian act’ anymore. We have arrived.”
In a recent chat with us, Soni said that the West was now serious about the talent of Indian or Indian-origin actors. He said, “Not only is there more content, but the producers are also focusing on characters rather than their ethnicities. I mean, when you go in for an audition, you get a character sketch, like ‘a 35-year-old American male’. The ethnicity of that character is developed after casting the actor, and I think that’s the most basic change that has happened. I’m really glad that it happened.”
Tiya Sircar, who plays the role of Arunima Schuman on the American TV show, Alex, Inc., recalls being rejected by the Western entertainment industry for not being “Indian enough” to play an Indian. She says, “I didn’t know, initially, what that meant; I guess they wanted me to conform to those stereotypes. But that doesn’t happen anymore. Makers know that I’m more an Indian American, and I don’t really identify with a lot of cultural aspects from [India].” Her casting changed the ethnicity of the Arunima character, while other aspects were more or less retained. No more being poured into the ‘Indian mould’.