Angry Indian Goddesses: Interview with Pan Nalin

Do you think it’s harder to pull off multi-starrers due to superstars’ egos instead of the generalization that women can’t be friends?

These are all manifestations of narrow minds. We are human beings, we should not forget that we are constantly evolving– for good or bad, but we keep evolving. So we should keep an open mind and not rush to judgement and generalization. Making a film and telling the story in an entertaining and inspiring manner is a very hard job be it men or women.

The chemistry between all the actresses was great, how did you make sure they clicked together after auditioning hundreds of women? Or were they picked individually and left their chemistry as a leap of faith?

First, AIG is an unconventional story and its soul rests in its characters. From the start, I knew that if we go wrong in casting, this film would be a disaster. Thus began a phenomenal task of searching talents. We got interest from 800 girls from all over India and abroad. My co-writer Subhadra Mahajan prepared a folder, which shortlisted well-known stars to non-professional actresses. We wanted to explore women across all milieu business, sports, music and so on. Casting director Dilip Shankar and myself selected about 200 potential candidates, and auditioned them. Maybe audition is not the right word for us- It was more like Rastafarian “reasoning” sessions where we encouraged talents to open their hearts and share their life journey with us over 60 to 90 minutes each.

We are very proud to have discovered talents like Pavleen Gujral, Rajshri Deshpande and Amrit Maghera– all three natural born brilliant performers. We are also introducing pop diva Anushka Manchanda in her first lead role in a movie. These four talents unite with the brilliant Sandhya Mridul and Tannishtha Chatterjee. Then there is Sarah-Jane Dias who will surprise everyone in her new make-up-less avatar!

Then came the questions of their chemistry, which was prepared at several level, information, emotional, practical, life-lessons involving meditation and Yoga, through writing, through music and dancing… Once all that was achieved, then we started working on their characters. All of those character briefs are inspired from real-life characters. Each was a story in itself. We did a workshop with them with the help of Dilip Shankar, where each one of them worked days and nights in building their persona and bringing their character to life. Each of them was encouraged to influence the script and characters; and I really wanted that. We all devised a system where the actresses would be transforming their characters and dialogues but without being aware. Their influence had to be so natural and organic that they did not even know that they were affecting the narrative.

I really loved Sarah-Jane Dias’ backstory and character build-up, but I was definitely taken the most by Amrit Maghera’s Jo. I really can’t think of a foreigner character that hadn’t been treated like a prop or a symbol of a hero’s loss of “indian-ness” in any of the films I’ve seen– was the development tied to the casting of Maghera or were you already looking for a mixed-race actress for the part?

Sarah-Jane Dias is super talented and she has given outstanding performance. Such acts are hard for someone who has been Miss India and done mainstream Bollywood movies with superstars. But she just nailed it.

In terms of Amrit Maghera’s character, right from the start we knew that Joanna, Frieda’s cousin (Sarah-Jane’s character), would be of mix race. We had studied lives of many Bollywood stars who are of mixed race or of foreign origins or NRIs. I found it very strange that it did not matter to Bollywood when women could not speak Hindi or act well; so my assumption is that they were chosen mainly for their fair skin and sex appeal?! Does that confirm that they want these actresses to dance and look sexy? If that is not true, then why do we not see male heroes of mix-race, NRIs, who cant speak Hindi properly?

Just think about that seriously.

That is a VERY interesting observation- until the 90s, I can only think of characters who were supposed to be NRIs, possibly successful but were most likely seen as characters to corrupt Indian society… until Shahrukh Khan’s Raj in DDLJ, who sort of battled that idea… but still he had to show that he was Hindustan at heart.

Do you think we’re much too critical of actresses as an audience— as a main talent, they should -of course- know how to act, but we also rage on them when they don’t look perfect on the silver screen, we criticize them when they’re too perfect, if she’s too young for the hero, if she looks too old… if she gets something done to enhance something, we complain about how plastic they are. If they stay natural, there’s always something that lacks. It’s like… there’s no winning in any situation for them.

Again everything you are saying highlights that the industry in casting women purely based on their physical appearances. That is so unfair to women talent. Sonam Kapoor as a kid played in lap of Salman Khan!

That’s got to do more with her being a Kapoor, though, no? Wonder what will happen with that all-female cast project rumor.