The invasion of the desis

When Burt Reynolds, who is part-Cherokee Indian, gets exasperated with himself he tends to mutter, "Dumb Indian." But on the sets of The Dukes of Hazzard, currently riding high at the US box-office, the legendary actor had to keep saying sorry every time he said that. There was a real Indian on the set, Indian-American director Jay Chandrasekhar. "He said he'd never worked with an Indian before,"laughs Chandrasekhar.But Reynolds will have to get used to it, because more and more faces like Chandrasekhar's are coming up in Hollywood, and they aren't just restricted to Heat and Dust stories.
Chandrasekhar is in good company these days. M Night Shyamalan, Aasif Mandvi, Nisha Ganatra, Gurinder Chadha, Mira Nair and Kal Penn are popping up in front of and behind cameras. "I certainly see a lot more talented Indian faces in the industry,"says producer Ashok Amritraj who is celebrating 25 years in Hollywood. "But they are mostly second-generation Indian Americans."
When Amritraj first came to Hollywood as an Indian immigrant, he found that his tennis connections opened doors but little else. "People would call me back, talk for 15 minutes about their backhand and then say they'd passed on my script,"recalls Amritraj whose Hyde Park Entertainment has just inked a five-year first-look financing, production and distribution deal with Twentieth Century Fox.
Even when people took him seriously, the projects he would get were invariably about India or sports. But when the Jean Claude van Damme-starrer Double Impact grossed 100 million dollars worldwide in 1991, the industry sat up and took notice. "I became an overnight success in ten years,"quips Amritraj.
Amritraj's track record in producing successful mainstream movies has helped Hollywood look beyond the Apu accent. "With studios seeing Manoj Shyamalan as a regular America guy who makes big films, the idea of hiring directors of Indian origin has become less risky,"says Gitesh Pandya, editor of BoxOfficeGuru.com.
But Shyamalan's success hasn't necessarily meant that Indian-American actors have it much easier. Kalpen Modi's auditions went up by 50 per cent only after he changed his name to Kal Penn. "As an ethnic actor, we have to be incredibly overqualified for even the smallest part,"says Penn. And even when he got called, the roles were embarrassingly stereotypical-like a guy named Taj Mahal for National Lampoon's Van Wilder.
A friend advised him to not just chuck the script but "pick 12 things that are so outrageous that you won't be able to sleep at night if you say them. And then come up with something funnier". He did and that role helped pave the way for Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle, the Ashton Kuchter-starrer A Lot Like Love, The Namesake and next summer a baddie in the new Superman. "Superman, it's the quintessential American film,"says the good vegetarian Gujarati boy from New Jersey excitedly.
Like Penn, Chandrasekhar grew up 100 per cent American in Chicago watching movies like Smokey And The Bandit. He wanted to be an American Monty Python but rarely resorted to mining his ethnicity for laughs. "Except that we had a show called Hindu PI about a cop who doesn't eat meat or carry a gun,"recalls Chandrasekhar. "But we did it not because it was Indian but because it was funny."
Chandrasekhar knows it's remarkable that "a guy this brown"is directing an American classic like Dukes. "I have to say this is a great example of the American dream," he says. But he doesn't see himself as that unusual. "Ang Lee made The Hulk and he didn't even grow up here."
Chandrasekhar feels the success of indie festivals like Sundance has helped bring more outsiders like him into the
Hollywood circuit. More desi directors making low-budget but quality films have also exposed a pool of talent to the rest of Hollywood, adds Gitesh Pandya who produced American Desi which starred Kal Penn.
Like Penn, Gurdeep Singh also changed his name to the more West-friendly Deep Roy when he entered showbiz. But the 4'4" Nairobi-born actor has rarely played an Indian on screen. He's been a chimp in Greystoke, an Italian assassin in The Pink Panther Strikes Again and will be the voice of Napoleon in Corpse Bride. His secret, says Roy, is "ambition, ambition, ambition".
"And I give the director what he wants,"he adds. Even when it's playing all 165 Oompa Loompas in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. His adaptability helps in a competitive industry. Director Tim Burton has come back to him again and again and even allowed him to add some Bollywood oomph to the Oompas. "Maybe now I'll get a chance to act in Bollywood as well,"says Roy and then raps "I'll make my pile. I'll live in style."
Times are changing in Hollywood. Or as Amritraj puts it: "Now I do the tennis games in my house and everybody comes there."