The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| ‘Life of Pi’ teen star lives out his own fairy tale Posted: 31 Oct 2012 07:49 AM PDT
The 17-year-old Sharma was picked from more than 3,000 hopefuls to play Pi, an Indian boy who finds himself stranded on a lifeboat for 227 days with a Bengal Tiger. Now 19, Sharma spoke to Reuters about the film, which opens in cinemas next month, acting with a computer-generated tiger and why "Life of Pi" may well be his first and last role. Q: How did this film come about? A: "I have been born and brought up in Delhi and my brother has acted in a couple of films. The auditions happened and the casting director was my brother's friend and he's been close to my family for a while. I went for the auditions with my brother for moral support ... I didn't really want to act, but I don't know, it happened. They kept calling me back. And then they called and said you have to come to Mumbai to meet 'Dao Yan'. I call Mr Lee Dao Yan." Q: Yes, I noticed that. What does it mean? A: "It means Mr Director in Chinese. I don't like calling him Ang, there is something not respectful about that ... Two weeks later, they said 'hey, Suraj you have to come to Taiwan'. Funnily enough even then I didn't believe I had got the role. It's very difficult to believe. You don't think things like that can happen to you." Q: What was shooting in Taiwan like? A: "I did three months of training — learnt swimming, sea skills, raft work — I even learnt how to fillet fish. I also ate raw fish, but let's not talk about that. There was weight gain and eventually weight loss. I came in very skinny, like a weak little runt (laughs). "Somehow we all went through Pi's journey together. There were many times where I felt that all of (us) together were Pi. I don't know what normal movies are like when they are made, but this can't be it." Q: What changed from the time you went for the audition to the moment when you got the role? A: "I had never acted before, but I knew I would like it. My brother and I would act to ourselves. We would walk down streets being different people and that is the only acting I have ever done. I got exposed to real movie-making and how things are done. It's a lot of people who come together, a lot of dreams that come together. For me, I just want to be on set. I don't care what I would be. If it's acting, directing, if it is props, I don't care ... Things might get better or worse, but this will always be there. A part of me will always be stuck in Taiwan, on that boat." Q: You had to shoot with a 'fake' tiger for the most part. How do you emote in front of something that isn't there? A: "Don't call him fake. He was real to me (laughs). No, but for the most part, we were shooting in a big blue tank with big blue walls around it and the blue sky above you. Everything was blue except for me and the raft. We had four tigers being trained as reference. I would watch them everyday — they would react to the water, the atmosphere, how they moved. I watched videos of tigers, I talked to the tiger trainer, etc. and so you assemble this huge picture in your head. Initially it was a very conscious attempt to imagine the tiger on the boat. But later, it became real to me. By the end of it I didn't need to imagine him. For me it was real." Q: What next? Roles for Asian actors are limited in Hollywood, aren't they? A: "I don't know whether I want to act. I might, I might not, depends on what comes my way. I want to be on set. I want to tell stories. I was really, truly possessed b y being on set. I cannot get over that feeling. It was more than an adrenaline rush, that fire. That collaborative feeling -- different people come together, and they all have their own stories — so many strings are pulled and they come together to create something which goes on to touch a million hearts. I can't get over that. I don't care what I do. It still hasn't sunk in actually. Sometimes I think about the whole thing from the third person and it seems like a blur." — Reuters |
| The show must go on: New York’s Broadway to reopen Posted: 31 Oct 2012 06:44 AM PDT  A darkened lower Manhattan is seen from Brooklyn October 30, 2012. — AFP pic Some of the city's most popular shows, including Jersey Boys and The Book of Mormon, were to open for either Wednesday matinee or evening performances, the official Broadway League industry group said in a statement. The shows were forced to shut their curtains on Sunday night, as Hurricane Sandy bore down on the east coast of the United States and New York City announced it was suspending city transportation services. But with the worst of the storm over, the League's executive director Charlotte St. Martin said "most shows" would go ahead on Wednesday and encouraged travellers stranded in the city to catch a performance. "It's a great time to see a show," she said in a statement. Sandy left at least 43 people dead in the United States and Canada and caused widespread damage, including mass power outages, in New York. — AFP-Relaxnews |
MUMBAI, Oct 31 — Suraj Sharma went from being a regular teenager growing up in New Delhi to starring in Ang Lee's big-screen adaptation of the bestselling novel "Life of Pi".| You are subscribed to email updates from The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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