Asia Sentinel

Yana Gupta

Bollywood is fast becoming a new kind of outsourcing destination for the western world: pale flesh. Casting agents are scouring the region to find foreigners for movies requiring international locales, themes and sets.

As these movies require sizeable casts of Caucasoid characters for their imaginary discotheques, British soldiers in period films and Hare Krishna converts, production crews are zeroing in on anyone remotely filling the bill.

That is increasingly including a flock of beauties of indeterminate nationality and ethnic background. Katrina Kaif, a fast-rising starlet who has achieved considerable success in the three years since her debut, has a Kashmiri Muslim father and an English mother. Barbara Mori, of Uruguayan-Japanese and Mexican descent, is starring opposite to Hrithik Roshan in “Kites.” Tania Zaetta is an Australian who earlier appeared in “Baywatch” and “Who Dares Wins” and is now starring in Hindi movies. Yana Gupta is a Czech.

Other sourcing countries for these part-time actors are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Czech Republic, Norway, South Africa, Serbia, US, Britain and Thailand. Many Indians raised abroad too are looking to Bollywood as a passport to fame.

Recent Hindi potboilers entirely set abroad include latest release the Dostana and earlier Salaam Namaste, Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, Kal Ho Na Ho, among others, catering to the growing financial muscle and numbers of ready to pay Indians crazy for Hindi movies abroad and a clutch of foreigners.

“With globalization and the Indian diaspora scattered globally, along with the increase in travel and business, the plots of Indian films have been internationalized and thus require western characters,” Joel Lee, an aspiring Bollywood actor who is in India on a scholarship, told local media.

Many like Lee, on a study visa to India, work part time in Bollywood, having found they can make extra money as either extras or in minor roles, including speaking bits. Given the rising numbers that dot the screen, tax authorities have begun to rope in such foreigners. Earlier, working on tourist visas, they avoided paying the government.

“Bollywood in the last three to four years has seen a surge of foreigners joining the industry because of a change in perception that it is not down-market at all and western actors have started taking it seriously, film analyst Taran Adarsh said.

The names of other foreign one-film wonders include actors Rachel Shelly and Tobey Stephens, who starred in Oscar-nominated Hindi blockbuster “Lagaan”, Lena Christensen in “Bombay to Bangkok”, Alice Patten from “Rang De Basanti”, Annabelle Wallace in ``Dil Jo Bhi Kahe”, Brande Roderick’s in “Out of Control”, Ali Larter from “Marigold”, and Eleanor Glynn in “India Rocks”.

It is the exposure and an opportunity to diversify their acting portfolios at the beginning of their careers (akin to what some young management executives do to get a taste of emerging India in their business portfolios) that attracts some young foreign actors, even when the roles in Hindi films are small and limiting.

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Richard Gere
written by Gandhi , January 08, 2009

Bollywood will be wise to keep clear of white so-called talents or trash such as Richard Gere or else, it may lose its unique movie franchise and end-up like a second rate Hollywood.

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