Sunday, March 26, 2006

A "Real-Life" Screenwriter Next Time, Sir?

Nabh Kumar Raju, a first-time second-time director, deserves a "Director With Cojones" award.

When little-known Bollywood director Nabh Kumar Raju was looking for six actors to star in his movie on the underworld, he had one criterion: they should have committed or had a brush with crime at some point of their lives.

So he hires 6 ex-cons. Holy Mother of All Method, this man is a Verite-casting genius. Lars Von Trier would be proud of him.

But did casting 6 ex-criminals make his job any easier?

"During the first acting workshop, these guys had a big fight for about 15 minutes. Even today I am still really shocked about it."

But the fight sequences must have been a breeze? Not really, it turns out. The too-real violent takes left the the fight director feeling "very scared during the shoot".

"the actors would get so involved in the scene sometimes that during a fight sequence, they would actually beat each other up."

I know what you are thinking - how could the fight director be intimidated so easily? Well, if your cast starts using real chairs to hit one another on the head, you too would be caca-ing bricks.

Raju's Blues. (link to BBC.)

3 comments:

kundalini said...

hilarious. in the first pic, the director looks like he's been given a few good knocks on his head.

Arun said...

awesome story. thanks for sharing the link krishna.

GhostOfTomJoad said...

I've heard about this film but didn't know that it's up for release already. I'm all for anyone who manages to start and finish a film :-)

Kundalini is right...looks like the poor director spoke out of turn and was put in his place :-)