‘I want to show the human reality of Bollywood dreams’
Actor turned photographer Mark Bennington speaks to Preeti Singh about his latest book of images that features 112 Bollywood actors, and about capturing the human side of stardom.
to do it.
Q. While clicking the photos, how was your experience with your subjects? A.
My experience with everyone was really good. Everyone was completely open, genuine and honest. Some were really just sort of holding their cards close to their chest, but in the interviews the feeling was always good with everyone that I photographed.
Q. The images also speak of the hard work and struggles of both established and budding actors. Was it easy to capture this
cause it is about all the people whom I have come across everyday. It’s a combination of my circle of friends and my circle of strangers.
Q. Can a parallel be drawn between Hollywood and Bollywood stars? A.
This question is focused on stars and I think that is a sort of problem on the outset of looking at this book which has all the stars in it. It’s not about Bollywood stars or Hollywood stars, but it is about actors and the acting community. Stars are one of the branches of that larger community. So I won’t be comparing stars per se but
“The idea behind the book was to document the lives of actors. And it happened when I was taking a trip to India in 2010 and thought to myself that I could do this book in India. It started out just as a sort of comparing and contrasting photo essay between Los Angeles and Bombay.”