1.5 Years As An Actor-Writer In Mumbai
I moved to Mumbai in December 2007, full of trepidation, but also with a certain bit of confidence in that I knew my strengths and weaknesses. My intentions were fourfold – acting, writing, voice work and music. I don’t believe in praying – I only believe in hard work – but I guess the uparwala has been quite kind to me, and so has the city of Mumbai. I’ve made starts in all four fields. As Mr Anupam Kher says, “This city gives everyone a chance.”
I’d told myself that I would start panicking only after going to about 100 auditions without any fruit. Thankfully, I’ve now got 5 TV ads on my resume out a total of about – I don’t know – maybe 60-70 auditions.
I was prepared to be yelled at by directors, but surprisingly, I haven’t seen a single display of temper yet from a director. (I flatter myself by saying that I’ve always done my work well, so there’s never been reason to get yelled at.) All the ad shoots have been smooth sailing. I’ve already written about my first and second ads. Following those, I shot for LG music systems, Big Bazaar and now GNIIT. The funny thing is I hadn’t seen a single ad I’ve been in until I found the GNIIT ad on the net today. Well, it’s not so funny when you consider that we don’t watch TV at home. We have two computers and membership at 4 video stores – we watch only movies and TV series like The Office, Little Britain, Friends etc.
Unexpectedly, the writing side of my career got a jumpstart too, thanks to the Sankalan contest. We still don’t know what’s finally going to come out of it, but I’ve met and learnt from some of the best in the business over its duration.
If all goes well, then my name will appear onscreen as dialog writer of a movie that started production last month in London. But more about that when it’s official.
I suppose most people land in Mumbai with stars in their eyes – I had no such delusions of grandeur. I knew where I stood – I knew exactly which people I was better than as an actor and which people were my baap ke baap ke baap in the acting craft. I knew that my looks would straight away eliminate me from a lot of work and also make me the only option for some other work. It’s worked out that way all right. The ads I’ve got have usually been specific to my looks. The LG music systems ad I got because of my guitar playing. I’m still waiting for my breakthrough film role – one possibility being Mr Danny Denzongpa’s son. Hopefully it won’t be the son who lies in a coma throughout the film.
We Are Racist, Aren’t We?
During an audition, the casting director said they were looking for ‘upmarket’ models, ‘which basically means fair and good-looking’. Okay, so fair is supposed to be ‘upmarket’ and ‘dark’ is supposed to be ‘downmarket’?
One of the supreme ironies of life is that while we Indians run after the Fair&Lovelies and the Fair&Handsomes and sunscreens and whitening creams, white people are busy rubbing suntan lotion and lying on beaches and in tanning beds to get a shade darker. I find our prejudices against dark skin very very ridiculous. Especially in the matrimonials.
10 Things I’ve Learnt From My Experiences in the Auditions & Ads World
1. The #1 funda for auditions: Do it, forget it. No matter how good you think you did, there’s every possibility of someone else having done better or fitting the requirements better.
2. For a single guy like me, there’s a tremendous array of good-looking girls everywhere.
3. There’s also a tremendous array of good-looking, six-packed, biceped dudes everywhere competing for those girls, so a non-six-packer like me doesn’t even bother to try.
4. Nobody (at the auditions) seems to read anything.
5. I’m probably the only chap with a dinosaur black&white mobile phone. (All I wanna do is message and call, really. I have a computer for other things.)
6. Almost everyone’s friendly.
7. 1st Assistant Directors are the most on-their-toes people in the world, are almost always female, and have the capacity to give you the tongue-lashing of your life – thankfully I’ve always been in their good books.
8. Directors (at least the ones I’ve been around) are calm people who do their job coolly, a far cry from the raving lunatic stories I’d heard. But I’m sure the first raving lunatic director I come across is gonna yell enough to compensate for all the calm ones. Nature always balances.
9. The most non-stereotypical make-up man is a 6’2” bodybuilder who looks more like an action hero.
10. The guitar is the most abused instrument in ads. Everyone tries to look cool by posing with a guitar. Unfortunately, it looks very idiotic when someone obviously doesn’t know even how to pretend to hold it.
Here’s the GNIIT ad:
The best thing to happen out of all this is that I’ve been able to finally bring out, albeit on a very small scale, our debut album – an Assamese/Hindi soft rock CD. I’ll write a separate post about it in a few days when I have the actual CDs in my hands, but till then, you can check out the songs at http://soundclick.com/brahmaputra
Tags: Acting, actors, ads, auditions, TVCs
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
oh! I’ve seen this GNIIT ad a few times but it didnt really catch my attention as such otherwise I would have noticed you Kenny.Its nice to read about your journey.I’m sure with Basra, your album & more ads lined (I guess so) you’d definitely be heading further upstream.Hope you had a great refresher with your home visit.But whats up on the voice work front?
Very nice. Very mature. Very level headed. I wish you all the best. Like someone said- “The journey is important, not the destination. And if you think you have arrived – it is the END”
Good one, wish you luck for the future.
You must be wondering after writing- what good does this article do to the world. Wannabes, who wait for things to happen, take a leaf out of your book, and start exploring. But yes, it also makes us non-achievers, non-explorers, extremely jealous
There will be atleast one day when talent will take precedence over stereotypes…that will be your day…Good to see you keeping the spirits up..Kenny
Also just attach one photo in your post, of any size…it will look good on main…
@Sethu, just two things are lined up so far, but nothing’s for sure until you actually see your mug or your name on screen and the money in your bank account
Voicewise, I did a few voiceovers last year for corporate stuff.
@Ram V, I forgot about the photo. I’ve emailed the editors :D
Cinemauser, Ashu, Vinay, thanks for the good wishes
Hi Kenny. You can only move forward, and with feet firmly on ground, you can only do better, I am sure. All the best for your future. Wasn’t that Panchi Bora in the GNIIT ad with you?
Yes, Utpal da. That was Panchi Bora. That was one of the funniest parts of the shoot. I had absolutely NO idea who she was. I just heard everyone calling her Panchi and I thought ‘Ponchi’ is an Assamese name…
Later, she herself asked me whether I was from the North East and we got talking.
Only later when I looked her up on facebook and saw all those fan pages did I realise oh teri – she’s a big star!
More than the lack of six pack physique, the dinosaur BW mobile is sure to make you socially non starter with modern girls – but they can wait till ‘Kenny – the superstar’ arrives in the horizon!
Did you know that ur name is the same as a Thamizh superstar Vikram?
Have you seriously considered changing your name to something like a Kishan Kapoor ? I am just joking.
On the serious front, I am very excited about Basra and your first script as well!! All the best bro!!
nice post sir ji… first time i saw your photo was in your post regarding your meet with Danny Denzongpa but i did’nt recognise you in this add before this post…keep going man and as i read a line on truck yesterday: MILEGA MUQADDER…CHALTE RAHO CHALTE RAHO…
nice
you make it sound so easy, so straightforward..
Well done. Hope the learning comes as useful tp other aspirants.
I just noticed your picture with the horns on both sides !
You should be able to take care of six packed hunks with weapons like that :p
Cheers!
I love Danny. I love his songs. I have even done parodies of his songs for gori girls
Kenny, the funny guy on PFC, nice post. Keep writing, keep posted about your work. Good luck.
Hey Kenny, this Ad is being aired regularly nowadays. I remember you had your eyes glued to the TV screen, during the T20 match when we guys met up, waiting for this ad to appear.
Keep persisting…lage raho!
gr8 man..,all the best
all the best!!!! ur hardwork and maturity will surely give u good success…
All the best kenny !! Gud to see one level headed , bright and gifted Assamese getting a foothold in Mumbai ….Just take care of the ” accent ” and am sure you wud do well…the song in You Tube is also nice….take care
Thanks for the wishes. I’ve been lucky to have grown around the correct people, so I don’t have our typical accent ;)