Amitash Pradhan, or as you probably know him, ‘Amul Baby’ of Velaiyilla Pattadhari fame (popularly referred to as VIP ), would have laughed in your face if you’d gone to him after the success of VIP and asked if Hollywood was next for him. He was, after all, struggling to land a decent role in Tamil cinema, despite all the acclaim that poured in for his performance in VIP . He apologises in advance for his clichéd response, and says, “I was waiting for the right script.” But it never came. Until life, that strange thing, got him a role in a Hollywood film. And made him a hero, no less.
It all happened when a casting agent called him out of the blue and asked if he could dance. “I’d like to think so,” he said.
He had, after all, won prizes dancing at his school’s cultural events. He had even spent a few days training at The Verb School of Dance in Chennai. At the time of this call, Pradhan had little idea that he was auditioning for the role of a choreographer in a Hollywood dance film, that’d be directed by Duane Adler, better known as the writer of the Step Up movies.
This was dance of a higher calibre; not of the high-school variety that Pradhan had originally assumed he would do.
Nevertheless, he went back to The Verb School, danced some hip hop and sent the casting director a video of it.
And then, as fate would have it, the floods intervened, and for weeks, he heard nothing, until the casting director suddenly called and asked if he could travel to Mumbai the following day. No explanations were offered. And when Hollywood casting directors call you, you ask for none too. So, Amitash promptly flew to Mumbai and was put in touch with Adler, who he learned, was about to make an English film called Heartbeats , about a hip hop dancer travelling to India and falling in love with an Indian choreographer.
And Pradhan wasn’t just playing a dancer; his character was a choreographer.
The auditions weren’t over though, and he, along with his competitors, were asked to follow the choreography of Shampa Gopikrishna (who worked on ‘Ab Tohe’ in Bajirao Mastani ). He then had to dance with the film’s actress, Krystal Ellsworth, to choreography by Tessandra Chavez, an Emmy winner. And a couple of days later, when Pradhan finally learned that he was picked for the lead role, he couldn’t but be all emotional about it. It isn’t every day that he gets cast as the hero of a Hollywood film.
The last three weeks have been thoroughly draining for Pradhan. “I’ve been part of exhausting workshops. The dance routines have been really inspiring.”
I ask him if Heartbeats is like Step Up , where the emphasis is more on dancing than on acting; where each scene leads to the next big dance set-piece.
He disagrees, “The whole film has an emotional quality about it. The lines ease into the dance. And at a time when America is waking up to Bollywood in a big way, the film is just perfect.” Also, having been a theatre actor, English dialogues aren’t a problem for him at all. He’s quite happy that they’re not stereotyping his role either. “It won’t be like Rajesh Koothrappali’s in The Big Bang Theory .”
What next? More films as a hero in Hollywood? He won’t laugh in my face; not after being chosen for Heartbeats . “Well, I suppose my dreams can be a little bigger now.”
