Be a Bollywood extra
Mr “Polo” Kanshaban runs Casting Planet,a Mumbai agency placing foreigners as extras in Bollywood films. Here he offers tips to achieving 15 minutes of Bolly fame
I have been casting extras in Bollywood films for five years. Film-making in Bombay is big business – producing several hundred movies a year – and they require a lot of people for backdrops, sometimes up to 150 a day. I usually recruit white people, but also lots of Africans and Chinese. Many producers think that foreigners add character to their films.
We usually approach tourists on the street and say, “Would you like to be in a Bollywood film?” Early morning at the Gateway of India is the best place. We also go to nightclubs, popular cafés like Leopold’s and the big hotels. Some people are very suspicious when we first approach them; they think we are trying to sell hashish or other kinds of drugs. But after they realise we are serious, they always come back and say sorry. I guess it’s the nature of tourism in India. We also have a German man working for us, recruiting tourists as extras. He has been in Bombay for a long time, and worked for many years as an extra. People – especially Europeans – trust him easily.
We provide transport, lunch, tea, coffee and give each extra 500 Indian rupees (US$12) for their efforts. It’s not much, even for Bombay, but it’s a great souvenir for people to take home from India – “I was in a movie!”
A few of the extras I have cast have gone onto become movie stars, Indians and foreigners. It helps if you learn Hindi or can dance like the contestants on long-running television show Boogie Woogie. Bollywood is, after all, all about music and dance.
I make a good living as a casting agent, although now Bollywood is becoming more famous the competition is getting tougher. It’s low season now; there are fewer tourists around and quite difficult to find the numbers. Say, would you like to be in a Bollywood movie? Interview Leisa Tyler
Casting Planet tel +91 98 2086 4296 |
