10.31.05
Hooray for Bollywood

I got a call back from the casting agency that I had impulsively submitted a resume and headshot to for a day's work as a extra. What kind of movie? Why, a Bollywood musical, of course!

The name of the movie is Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna and it apparently stars two of top box-office draws from India. I was talking with a reporter from Newsday who was covering the production, and he said it was the first Bollywood movie to be filmed on location in NYC.

The call for extras was actually pretty small (about 40 people), and everyone commented on how nicely we were treated by the crew. (We actually got direction from the director, instead of having a PA yelling at us through a bullhorn.)

And the extras actually seemed more functional than the typical people whom try to make a living at it. Most of them had day jobs, and were first timers who happened to be Indian film fans. Although there was one super-creepy guy who looked like a huge(r) version of Ron Jeremy, who showed up with these two Asian girls that he spent the time between takes ordering around and screaming at ("Woman, I told you get me a donut, you lazy bitch!") He also spent nine hours making up new verses to "New York, New York" until everyone wanted to pretty much gang up and beat the crap out of him. ("New York, New York, a horrible place, I want to punch you in the face..." I'm sure Adolph Green was rolling over in his grave, dahling.) But most of the people seemed pretty normal.

We were shooting at the NYS Superior Court building, which was doubling as a train station in the movie. It was freezing. We did five scenes:

Walking down the stairs with my boyfriend

Walking up the other side of the stairs alone

Walking down the stairs while talking on a cellphone to excitedly great my boyfriend (not the same one as above)

Having an animated conversation in front of a fountain with the first boyfriend

Running up the stairs

That last shot was great, because the action in the foreground involved a child actor who wouldn't get hysterical enough for the camera: in the scene his mother was getting driven away in an ambulance and he was supposed to scream and cry. Eventually the director actually told him to imagine that it was his dog that got run over, not his mom. It worked.

I got to see the rushes from that last sequence, and sure enough, you can see my head bobbing up and down as I run up the stairs for the 20th time. My knees are still killing me.

I have no idea if I made it into any other shots, but one of my costume changes was a bright orange jacket, so I should be pretty easy to pick out if I did.

Oh, and I did manage to ruin an entire take myself! Since it was supposed to be a train station, they gave us all luggage to carry, and at one point I got handed a really cheap vinyl book bag, and it was so cold that the shoulder strap got stiff and slipped off of my shoulder so I tried to surreptitiously bend over and pick it up without breaking stride, but they caught it.

And what is the best part of working on a Bollywood production? Craft services gives you Indian food for lunch.

And I got paid enough to buy a new hairdryer.