'I was influenced by Gandhi's way of thinking'

PANAJI: "I stroked the cheek of the Mahatma's portrait in the governor's palace moments ago. It brought tears to my eyes. It was like listening to a long-lost song," said Sir Ben Kingsley in Panaji on Monday. Kingsley, who played the Oscar-winning role of the Mahatma in Richard Attenborough's 1981 film "Gandhi", is set to portray Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in his $27 million movie "Taj Mahal".
In Goa to tie up with investors for his venture, Kingsley said that he plans to cast his wife Daniela Lavender as Shah Jahan's first wife, and Aishwarya Rai as Mumtaz Mahal. He said he is also mulling approaching Mira Nair to help direct the film.
"The Taj Mahal is an amazing creation. It is a scream of pain frozen in marble. In my film, I plan to portray the great Shah Jahan with equal amounts of empathy and affection. I plan to showcase his vulnerability and strengths. Therefore, it is either foolish or brave of me to play this role," Kingsley said.
Recounting his memories during the making of "Gandhi", Kingsley said he was always fascinated with the portrayal of historic roles. "Five years before I acted as the Mahatma, I played the role of Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. All my work and all the characters I have played so far, from a revolutionary to a gangster, are connected by the thread of empathy," he said.
"I was very influenced by Gandhi's way of thinking. Although he was very angry about the system, he had the remarkable ability to convert his anger into something intellectual and graceful," Kingsley said.
Kingsley also placed the works of Satyajit Ray on par with those of William Shakespeare and Leo Tolstoy. "Ray, like Shakespeare and Tolstoy, had the amazing ability to enrapture audiences by portraying the sufferings of a single person. I love his work," he said.