Sonam Kapoor must be jealous of her dad.Her heavily-promoted shopping extravaganza movie "Aisha" doesn’t seem to have done that well. Meanwhile television ads and gigantic billboards put up by the cable channel AXN in recent weeks have been urging viewers to catch Anil Kapoor’s “debut on American television”—in India. That’s globalization for you.
The debut actually happened on Fox, a network that belongs to News Corp., which also owns the Wall Street Journal, in January this year. But the eighth season of the national security drama “24,” in which Mr. Kapoor plays the president of “Kamistan” only began airing here last week. This time Jack Bauer has to save Mr. Kapoor’s character from an attempt on his life.
Mr. Kapoor, who until two years ago was possibly best-known in India for the film “Mr. India,” in which he plays a superhero with the power to make himself invisible, made a mark on American audiences with “Slumdog Millionaire,” where he acted as the snobbish, sneering game show host Prem Kumar. The success of “Slumdog” not only pushed Mr. Kapoor onto the international red carpet but it also helped trigger an increasing amount of collaboration between Hollywood and Bollywood.
After that he got cast as Omar Hassan, president of a country that seems like a cross between Iran and Pakistan. Watching Mr. Kapoor on the show, which began airing last week, one wonders whether he’s going to be the next Om Puri—the Bollywood guy that American or British film and television producers cast when they need to fill an Indian or Pakistani role.
These days some of those roles might go to actors born overseas, said Nandini Ramnath, Mumbai-based film editor for Time Out in India.
“It’s likely that the position that actors like Om Puri held will now be filled by people coming out of the South Asian communities in the U.S. and U.K. itself,” said Ms. Ramnath via e-mail.
But the current crop of South Asian actors who have grown up in Britain or America are in their 20s or 30s, so for older roles that require a little gravitas and an authentic accent to play those prime ministers, presidents, immigrants, participants in the War on Terror, and soon, wizard of microfinance, Hollywood and the U.K.’s Channel 4 will still have to turn to these stars.:
1. Anil Kapoor: We never could have imagined the prancing, dancing star of “Mr. India” carrying off non-Bollywood roles. But Mr. Kapoor was really good—and not over the top—in “Slumdog.” And he works for well for his role in “24″ too though for Indian viewers, it’s difficult to attribute his accent to a made-up country. So far he’s played pretty posh characters; a struggling immigrant role might be a stretch for him.
2. Anupam Kher: The classically trained actor played a Punjabi immigrant father in “Bend it Like Beckham” and an immigrant grandfather in 2005’s “Mistress of Spices” and also appeared in Ang Lee’s 2007 movie “Lust, Caution,” set in China. Mr. Kher doesn’t get very many of the more serious roles, but he’s consistent (and believable) when it comes to playing the first-gen family guy in lighter movies.
3. Irrfan Khan: He played the inspector who tortured Dev Patel’s “Jamal” in “Slumdog Millionaire” and appeared in “The Namesake,” an adaptation of the Jhumpa Lahiri book of the same name. He also played a Pakistani police inspector in “A Mighty Heart,” based on the book by slain Wall Street Journalist Daniel Pearl’s widow, Mariane Pearl. Last year he appeared in a Mira Nair-directed segment opposite Natalie Portman in “New York I Love You.” He’s also supposed to appear in a movie about Grameen microbanker Muhammad Yunus in a film due out next year.
“Irrfan inherited the space vacated by Om Puri, who’s getting a bit too old to play certain kinds of roles,” said Ms. Ramnath.
4. Naseeruddin Shah: He’s the star who began to cross over and then stopped. He appeared as Captain Nemo in a “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” in 2003 and in the 2007 U.K. film, “Shoot on Sight,” as a Muslim police officer at Scotland Yard who has to investigate suspected terrorists in the wake of the 2005 London train bombings. But he hasn’t appeared in very many overseas productions since then. That’s probably by choice—he’s appeared in about four Indian films a year in recent years.
5. Om Puri: Yes, he’s getting older all the time but there’s no need to write him off just yet, as his turn in the 2007 movie “Charlie Wilson’s War,” where he played 1970s and 1980s-era Pakistani president Zia-ul-Haq showed. He’s still good for another few rounds of president, prime minister or recently immigrated cab driver. And honestly, he doesn’t look substantially different than he did a decade ago in “East is East.” Look for him next in “West is West,” which may be partly shot in India.
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