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Crossover star

INDIAN AMERICAN ACTOR Sendhil Ramamurthy, who plays the lead in Gurinder Chadha’s It’s a Wonderful Afterlife, doesn’t want to do the typical Bollywood song and dance routine and says the kind of work Abhay Deol does is what interests him.

Apart from Chadha’s film, Sendhil is known for his role in sci-fi TV drama Heroes and is also playing the lead role in Ekta Kapoor’s Shor.

“I wanted to come to India and do some work, but all the work that I was being sent I wasn’t interested in doing really,” said Sendhil.

“I was waiting for something like Shor to come along and I was just so pleased when it did. When I was working on Shor, I met Abhay Deol. He seems to be doing the kind of films that would be of interest to me.”

“He is not really interested in doing song and dance movies either. He is interested in doing more character-driven and character-based films,” explained Sendhil.

Asked if he has been approached with other Bollywood offers, Sendhil said: “I have nothing so far that really keeps my interest. But I’m waiting and hoping. I read everything that comes through my agents, but so far nothing has made me say yes.”

Born to Tamil parents from Bangalore in Chicago, the 35-year-old will now be seen in the British movie It’s A Wonderful Afterlife releasing on May 7. Starring veteran Bollywood actress Shabana Azmi in a pivotal role, it’s a romantic comedy about a mother who goes to extreme lengths to get her daughter married.
It also stars Goldy Notay, Sally Hawkins, Jimi Mistry, Wanamaker and Mark Addy. Talking about his role, Sendhil said: “I play a British Indian police officer who’s brought to London to go undercover to investigate a string of murders that are occurring in the Indian community. And through the course of investigations he finds out that one of the primary suspects is a family friend of his. Through various comic situations he tries to prove thatshe is not the murderer, falling in love with her in the process,” he added.

The actor is now “looking for more crossover films”. Language, however, is a bar for the actor. “Nobody in my family speaks Hindi. My family are Kannada speakers. I don’t believe in dubbing. It just takes away the essence of the film. You don’t get what the filmmaker originally intended... I don’t want to rule anything out, but I don’t see myself learning Hindi or any other language just to do a film. It’ll be like robot talk,” he added.