It’s not really until the third act that, as we learn through Ash’s character, we learn more about him and his family background and why he is the way he is. He becomes a much more sympathetic character than what we maybe would have originally judged him as. In doing that, hopefully we pushed the whole theme of film – pride and prejudice – that Jane Austen was writing about. How we judge people based on our perception of them and that’s relative to our own values, or in this case, cultural system. (Laughing) And sh*t – I’m going on and on now!
That’s a good thing. Keep going…
(Laughing) At least that’s what I was trying to do. Gurinder agreed and we sort of did that. And I think some people when they first saw they dailies were like, “What’s he doing with the character? He should be more charming.” I was like, “Well, that would be easy to do but then there’s nowhere for the audience to go with Lalita’s character to actually find out who he is.” And really, that’s what the whole film’s about.
So the character is a lot different than he was originally scripted?
It was kind of there. But a bit of it was my own interpretation. And then reading Jane Austen and trying to serve, I guess, what she initially was doing in her novel and just trying to explore some of those themes. Yeah, I just decided it was more interesting that way. On the page I guess he was a lot more straight-laced. And we took that risk of making him arrogant, of making him a bit of a d**k really (laughing).
We don’t get to hear you sing and we barely get to see you dance in the film, but you took part in the dance training even for scenes you weren’t involved in. Were you trained as a dancer before making this film?
NO. No, no, no, not at all.
What was your skill level like before making shooting started?
Pretty bad. Luckily for everyone who goes to see the film, I don’t dance a lot in it (laughing). I’m like so white I even have like an overbite when I dance.
You don’t really, do you?
I think I do. I think there’s moments where I start really getting into it, I start really trying to feel it, and my teeth come up over my bottom lip and my ass sticks out and my elbows stick out. I mean, it’s not a good look. No, I’m being a little too self-deprecating (laughing). But I’m not the world’s greatest dancer. But obviously my character was the most reserved one in the film and didn’t really embrace the Indian culture, so I didn’t have to be very good at it.
It’s funny I should play a character like that because as soon as we would wrap or the film wasn’t rolling, I’d be dancing around and getting into it. My time off from traveling while we were in India, I was backpacking around through Kerala and up Jaipur. I just loved it and it was really odd to then sort of go on set and put on an Armani suit and look down my nose at it all and act like a conceited [person].
You must have felt like you were missing out on the fun during the shooting.
Yeah, a little bit, but I was having a lot of fun off the set. I kind of took some weird pleasure in pretending to not embrace it. Strange.
Gurinder said she wanted to cast Indians who were truly Indians, Brits who were truly Brits, and Americans who were really Americans. You’re from New Zealand…
(Laughing) That kind of blows a hole in that theory.
If she was looking for an American, how did you get hooked up with the project?
Well, the script was sent to me. I live in LA now so I was in Los Angeles. The script was sent to me. I was sitting around reading a bunch of scripts trying to figure out what would be a good thing to do next. I think she’d been told about me by someone, like her agent or whatever, and then the script was sent to me. I just thought it was such an original idea and the two of us set up a meeting and that was about it. I mean, about a week or so later I got a phone call that said she wanted to cast me just based on the meeting that we had.
I don’t know. Maybe part of it was the fact that I wasn’t an American. She liked the idea of having someone who would maybe be more prepared to play a character who was representing the West, and specifically Americans, as albeit a stereotype or cliché of being the arrogant, conceited, capitalist.
And it took someone from New Zealand to play this role?
(Laughing) Maybe. Maybe I was more willing than someone who was American. No, I’m only joking. I think part of it was just our personalities. I think we got on.
