Is international acclaim, a kiss of death in Bollywood? Nimrat Kaur, Adil Hussain, Rima Das speak up

Many have started questioning if mediocrity is always intimidated by brilliance and that is why many who work in the West, no longer get the kind of roles they used to in Bollywood.

When music maestro AR Rahman said that his filmography in Bollywood is sparse because of a gang spreading rumours about him, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur pointed out that an Oscar “is the kiss of death in Bollywood”. This claim was later supported by Oscar winning sound engineer Resul Pookutty, who shared how he had gone through near breakdown as “nobody was giving me work in Hindi films” and regional cinema held me tight after he won the Oscar. So, is international acclaim really a death knell for a talents career in Bollywood?

Actors Nimrat Kaur (left) and Adil Hussai have been a part of several international projects.

“Sometimes people shy away from bringing something to me because they think they can decide things for me. They may think that now she worked in Homeland, so why will she do this? But that does not matter to me. I am always looking forward and look at what are you are going to do next. I wish that it does not happen the way it does but I know that it happens and I am very aware of it. In my case, I have to tell people that here I am for a film to do here and I don’t live in LA… I have to clear those perceptions,” she shares.

Adil Hussain, the winner of the best actor award at the Norwegian National Awards back in 2018 for What Will People Say, has done international films such as Life of Pi, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012) and was also a guest star on the latest third season of Star Trek: Discovery.

He says, “The only thought which comes to my mind is it could be that ‘oh now these people are of a different league and they don’t want to work with us’ Or they may they think such people are too expensive or too arrogant. May be those kind of thoughts may occur in people’s minds.”

However, he adds, that he has no such experience to share, till now. “Nobody has told me that since you are doing an international film, will you be ever interested in an Indian film. I work in films of all languages in India.”

While filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri does not want to delve into the statement made by Kapur and Pookutty, he does believe that there’s indeed a culture of isolation.

“Anupam Kher went to Hollywood and he does not get much work here anymore, the reasons are best known to these Bollywood filmmakers,” he opines.

But filmmaker Rima Das, whose film Village Rockstars was India’s official entry for the Oscars, 2018 in the Best Foreign Language Film Category official entry, besides having achieved international acclaim with her films, begs to differ. “My journey is very different. I made self-produced films and haven’t worked with studios yet so can’t really say whether international acclaim hampers your chances in India. In fact, after the international acclaim people started paying more attention to my films and it opened new windows in terms of marketing and distribution,” she shares.

Many have even contested that mediocrity will always be threatened and intimidated by brilliance and that is why many who work in the west, no longer get the kind of roles they used to in Bollywood.

Trade analyst Atul Mohan feels this is rather unfounded and he does not agree with Kapur.

“Intentional recognition can never bring any kind of hurdles to one’s profile in India. That is not the case and anyway how many of international awards or recognition do we even manage to get. Don’t forget how well Irrfan was doing, in both India and abroad,” Mohan sums up.

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