Bollywood AMA

Dunno if this has been posted but I just wanted to share

https://www.reddit.com/r/bollywood/comments/dbx1n3/ama_my_name_is_harry_key_i_was_a_bollywood_actor/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossm

The blinds were true...

What was the weirdest demand you had seen from a actor/actress during shoot? to directors/producers

level 2BollywoodGora

80 points·1 day ago

Oh DAMN I just remembered this story: So it was on a film about a reality TV show, with the actor Govinda. I'd not heard of him and people said he was a big star from a while ago but hadn't been in many films lately. So we turn up on set on day one, I'm put in the trailer with the other white people. We get put in our costumes and makeup, and we wait. That's fine, waiting is usual. But we wait and wait, and go home after the first day, having been there from I think something like 9am to about 10pm, and haven't shot a single thing.

Second day, same thing. We start asking questions. Govinda doesn't want to shoot today. Why? Because today isn't auspicious. What? Turns out Govinda has become really superstitious, and I think he even had his numerologist on set with him. And he consults this guy on everything. If the day isn't auspicious, he won't shoot. On day three, it IS auspicious, but only after midday.

I forget how many days I was on set, but it was quite a few, and they kept just having to delay things and try to shoot scenes around where he will be so they can 'cheat' him into the scene later.

Apparently he's changing the script and turning up, doing a bit, then someone says something unlucky and he walks off set. It's just crazy, it was like watching someone developing a serious mental disorder. Finally we decide to shoot this main scene where he wins the reality show the whole movie is about.

The film was struggling financially, so they'd sold some product placement to a jewellery company called Aag. So I'm in the main scene, that this company has paid money to have their brand name mentioned next to this famous actor. We're standing next to one another and they roll film and I say my line with the word "Aag" in it. Govinda calls for cut (actors are not meant to call cut unless something is going seriously wrong). He summons the advice of his guru/numerologist/charlatan. They confer. Nope, they've decided that aag, because it means fire, is inauspicious. At first it seems like he's going to allow us to film me saying 'Aag' in close up and edit him into it later. He ends up deciding that too will displease the spirits and declines. The whole film goes bust.

I keep telling you guys, some of these 6ft tall actors aren't 6ft tall. Kuch log 24X7 elevator shoes pehane hote hai, toh kuch log aise harkate karte hai...

I did come around in the end, but I didn't like Abhishek at first. I think some of it was that I was meant to have a scene with both John and Abhishek, standing next to them, but I'm 6'3", and he's not. I think he tells people he's 6'2" or something, but he was shorter than that so then the set got moved around so we weren't together any more. One of the AD's told me it was because he didn't want to look short.

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LOL... Kajol.

Oh who I didn't like was... Hmm what's her name? We had a tiny scene together in We Are Family. I was meant to be playing a stage manager trying to get her on stage, so I played it me being angry. She didn't like being shouted at and I thought that was silly. I thought "You're an actor, act like a professional".