Daniel Caltagirone shares a strange but beautiful connection with India. At least, that’s what the British actor believes. Caltagirone, who has been a part of some of the most high-profile international films such as T as well as in a number of popular TV shows including a cameo in Friends, was very recently seen as the parallel lead in Tamil filmmaker Pa Ranjith’s .
Although is his first Indian film, this is not the actor’s first stint working with an Indian filmmaker. Caltagirone has worked with Shekhar Kapoor on and with Tarsem Singh in . “We filmed for six months and I fell in love with India,” he recalls.
As for the former, even though it was a Hollywood film, Caltagirone says that Kapoor brought in his Indian sensibilities as a director to the project. “There’s a powerful energy that surges through this country and I feel it each time I step on Indian soil. Many of my actor friends cannot believe that I have worked with not one but three Indian directors.
Even now, my colleagues over there couldn’t believe that I’ve done a parallel lead alongside an Indian star,” he says. The Indian star being referred to here is Chiyaan Vikram who stars alongside Caltagirone in that brings to life the real story of the Kolar Gold Fields and its exploitation during the British colonial era. While Vikram plays the protagonist, the latter plays British general Lord Clement who is determined to find gold in the fields.
The film has already crossed the Rs 100-crore mark in cinemas and garnered praise for its attention to detail and performances by the lead cast. Although Caltagirone admits he never asked Ranjith why he chose him for the role, the British actor recalls receiving a call from his agent to inform him that an “illustrious Indian director” wants to speak to him. “We had a long conversation and it was clear that he wanted to cast someone with a prominent career and not just any actor who could speak English.
On my part, although I love Indian cinema because it’s so entertaining and fun, the English characters always seem a tad cliché. But he convinced me that it is a parallel lead and unlike the characters we have usually seen on screen. Basically, he asked me if I wanted to be a part of an adventure and I said yes,” he smiles.
Physically and mentally, is one of the hardest films he has done. “We shot through all four seasons,” he says about the shoot that took place across Chennai, Andhra Pradesh, Madurai and Karnataka for close to a year. Also, Caltagirone learnt that unlike in the West, he had to do a few stunts on his own and even sustained some injuries.
The other interesting aspect is that unlike many Indian films that show British officers spewing dialogues in heavily-accented Hindi—in this case Tamil—the director did not ask him to do the same. “My character would have viewed it as the villagers’ responsibility to understand him, rather than him trying to learn their language,” he says. For someone who has worked in some of the biggest Hollywood movies, how does he look at Indian cinema as compared to the West? While the latter, he says, has started making content for the purpose of streaming, India still creates content primarily for the big screen.
“Your films are exciting, passionate, vivid and visceral. The lesson to be learnt here is that if you too start going down the road of streaming and give up your cinemas, you will see how different your films will be,” he says, with a hint of a warning in his voice..
