In a career spanning over a decade, actor Nimrat Kaur has been a part of three Hindi films including her last release, Dasvi. The actor, who began her career with Anurag Kashyap’s Peddlers in 2012, gave her breakthrough performance with The Lunchbox in 2013. A year later, in 2014, she starred in her first international project, Homeland. Since then, she has featured in Wayward Pines (2016) and the eightH season of Homeland in 2020. Last seen in Disney+Hotstar web-series School Of Lies for which she received a positive response, Kaur is currently seen in season two of Apple TV’s science fiction drama, Foundation.
In an exclusive interview with News18, the actor talks about her international journey as an actor, and working with Jared Harris and how the landscape is changing for Indian actors in the West.
From The Lunchbox, to The Test Case, Dasvi, School of Lies, you have a great nose for the kind of projects that you are picking up. What was it about the second season of The Foundation that you thought should be added to your illustrious career?
I think I have been lucky. You can’t manufacture stuff like that. When you pick up a project, you are aware of the people who are attached to it and the part that has been offered to you and just hope that everything else just lands well. So the strike rate has been pretty good (laughs). I have really enjoyed working on every project. It is like after you have done a certain amount of work in your career, you can look back and understand where you are and where you anticipate yourself to be. So, Foundation was a project that was about a world which I have not been a part of earlier. I am a huge science fiction fan and loved this genre from the time I started watching English movies.
All your scenes in the series are with Jared Harris. How was your experience of working with him?
I was really excited and looking forward to sharing screen space with Jared. He is such a talented person and I was sure that I would be coming out looking better than what I have been. Rarely do you come across opportunities where you learn from people you work with. And he’s really an institution on his own, such a fine mind and such an excellent hotbed of talent. He’s really, really extraordinary. Of course, I was nervous. I wasn’t terrified. He went beyond all of that for me. I learnt so much by reading scenes with him, by studying what we were going to do, just by watching him purely sometimes.
This is your third international project after Homeland and Wayward Pines. Do you think things have become easier when it comes to looking out for work in the West?
I have never consciously looked out for work in the West. Homeland happened to me after The Lunchbox. Wayward Pine because of Homeland. Foundation-Season 2 happened because of my association with Alex Graves and David Goyer. I believe work gets work for me when it comes to the West. I thoroughly enjoy working in the West. I am not aggressive about living abroad and fighting my way for work. It has become so much more inclusive. Like, Alex came to me with this show he said, “I hope you’ll take this up. It’s a guest appearance but we need someone to justify what we need for Jared Harris’ part. We’re treating it like a film within the show.” He said just the right things for me to leap at this part. I also feel the volume of work has gone up everywhere. There is so much cross pollination that is happening and I believe it’s a great time that people are looking to plug in actors from across the globe.
Even today, we see a lot of Indian actors in the West doing cameos or having limited screen time. Do you feel this can change in the future?
I believe it depends from project to project. Culturally, we are so far apart but at the same time it’s great that there is cross pollination that is happening, but to expect Indian actors getting into mainstream work with the ambition that everyone hears all the time is always disappointing. How many international actors do we see in Indian movies? We are the largest film industry in the world but we don’t have room for any international actors. I guess it is the same reason why we don’t get the screen time that one would like to see. But I think it is different. Every actor and project is evolving. The amount of work that Indian actors are doing abroad is definitely on the rise considering the kind of talent that we have.
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