CAST FACTOR

As scripts become less star-driven,the Hindi film industry discovers the casting director

As scripts become less star-driven,the Hindi film industry discovers the casting director
Five years ago,as an assistant director (AD) on Anurag Kashyaps Black Friday,Gautam Kishanchandani was given the difficult task of finding actors for the 150-odd speaking parts in the film. After 700 auditions,the cast was sealed and Kashyap told his AD that his name would roll in the credits as casting director. Kishanchandanis baffled response: Whats that? Today,though,he has his own team of casting associates and has just completed casting for Rajkumar Guptas No One Killed Jessica.

Bollywood does multi-starrer. It swears by casting coups. But as stories get more realistic and less dependent on star value,the industry has begun to care about getting the right cast. And casting directors like Kishanchandani and Nandini Srikent (Luck by Chance,Karthik Calling Karthik,Wake Up Sid,Rock On!!),Atul Mongia (Love,Sex aur Dhoka) and Abhimanyu Ray (Chak De! India,Teen Patti,Yuvraaj and Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year) have expertly slipped into the new role. Mongia put together a cast of unknown faces for Dibakar Banerjees latest film that got as many stars as the critically acclaimed director. Luck by Chance won the Star Screen award for the Best Ensemble Cast,the first such award category that was introduced this year.

Mukesh Chhabra,who was the casting director of Love Aaj Kal and Chintu Ji,and is casting for Rakeysh Omprakash Mehras next,believes he is part of a bigger change. Casting direction is here to stay as scripts become less hero-driven,more versatile,more complex with the need of more characters, he says.
This is a small tribe of film professionals. We are very few and are in demand mostly with people like Akhtar,Vishal Bharadwaj,Gupta and Kashyap who prefer casting fresh,real people, says Kishanchandani. Mostly,assistant directors do the casting of the film. Honey Trehan,who was the casting director for Kaminey,tells us that the first Indian film to give a casting credit was Bandit Queen,whose casting director was Tigmanshu Dhulia,a fresh passout from NSD. Then,there was a long gap,the mid-1990s era of David Dhawan and Suneel Darshan. Films were made with only stars in them. But with Bollywood turning more professional,film-makers today appreciate new actors with small but significant roles, says Trehan.

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The thumb rule for a good cast is freshness. And regional theatre groups are a happy hunting ground for casting directors. For instance,Giselle Monteiros family in Love Aaj Kal was picked from theatre groups in Punjab,Rajasthan and Delhi. I wanted authentic Punjabi faces says Chhabra. For Ishqiya,a film based in eastern UP,casting director Jogi travelled to Patna and picked up a teenager from a theatre group to play the role of Nandu,the boy who wields his tamancha at Arshad Warsi in the film. Salman Shahid,who played jeejaji,the leader of the robbery gang in Gorakhpur,was picked from a theatre group in Karachi.

Still,the work of the casting director begins after the lead actorswho are always decided by the producer /directorhave been picked. Most movies cant get financers without a big name, says Srikent. That doesnt mean casting directors look for extras. We only scout for speaking parts,even if its just a line. So,for the bit role of the man who sells the mysterious black telephone to Farhan Akhtar in Karthik Calling Karthik,Shrikent had to audition 25 people.

Casting takes anywhere between two months and a year and several brainstorming sessions with the director. Mahmood Farooqui,the casting director of Peepli Live,ruled out looking for actors in Mumbai and conducted 900 auditions across theatre groups in Bhopal,Lucknow,Raipur and Jabalpur for 90 characters. An actor playing an Adivasi farmer has to look and speak like one, he says. If youve got the casting right,youve got 90 per cent of the work done. You dont have to work too hard with the camera, says Farooqui.

Sometimes,the right face is a matter of serendipity. Trehan recalls how he cast Amole Gupte,the writer of Taare Zameen Par,as the Maharashtrian politician,Bhope Bhau in the film. Trehan was clear he didnt want the usual suspects for the role,like Atul Kulkarni or Nana Patekar and when he saw a photograph of Gupte sitting on a swing and talking about his favourite dish in a tabloid,he knew he had found his man. Gupte first banged down the phone in anger at Trehans call; Vishal Bhardwaj was uncomfortable about casting such a big name but both finally gave in.

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Over a couple of projects,the casting director and the director develop a good camaraderie. Abhimanyu Ray shares such an equation with Shimit Amin. He convinced Amin about casting model Gauhar Khan as the middle-class receptionist in Rocket Singh,a film for which except for Ranbir,everybody was cast by Ray. We do experiment and not always strictly abide by the directors brief, says Ray who also got the cast for Chak De! India.
Some casting directors are attached to production companies. Ray is the head of casting at Yash Raj Films,while Shrikent casts for Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwanis company,Excel Entertainment (her next project is Zoya Akhtars Zindagi Na Milegi). There are other alliances: Trehan- Bhardwaj (Omkara,Maqbool and Kaminey),Kishanchandi-Kashyap (Gulaal,Dev.D,Black Friday)and Kishanchandani-Gupta (No One Killed Jessica,Aamir). So,next time a fresh face overshadows the star in a film,youll know who got himthe casting director.