Marigold will see lots of Salman Khan

Leading Hollywood filmmaker Willard Carroll about his experience of working with Salman Khan in Marigold and his impressions of Bollywood .

A Hollywood filmmaker has taken up Bollywood’s cause and has sworn his first Hollywood-meets-Bollywood film will be free of kitsch and will have lots of Salman. Willard Carroll on Bollywood, Amitabh and spending four days in Sallu’s house!

150 Hindi films and counting...
The first Bollywood film I ever saw was Chori Chori Chupke Chupke . After that, I went home and watched about 150 Bollywood movies and got well versed with Hindi cinema. Then I returned to Mumbai and met Salman Khan. I had 15 minutes with him and thought I would briefly explain what my next film Marigold will be all about. And the next thing I knew, he had thrown a party for me, invited all his friends and I was practically adopted by his family! It was quite a treat and I left his house after four days. Salman is a very chilled out guy who seems to treat acting like child’s play. But actually he is a serious professional. Salman’s instincts are spot on.


Dancing to an Indian tune...
My film’s leading lady Ali Larter had no clue about Bollywood. In fact, she was sitting next to an Indian woman in a plane and asked her who Salman is. The Indian woman got really excited and said that he is the heartthrob of the Indian film industry. That made Ali say yes to the film.
But once here, the dancing was quite a challenge for her. Ali comes from the school of thought that you have to learn everything about the character. So she wanted to get her steps right and she actually did. But when she saw others doing their steps with the assistants, she realised that all her effort was in vain.

Bollywood-Hollywood...
I have met almost all Bollywood stars during the shooting of the film. I met Aamir when he was campaigning for Lagaan at the Oscars. I think he is a brilliant guy. Here the actors are very warm and open-hearted. I also like the humility of stars like Aamir and Shah Rukh when they are not facing the camera. But the moment the camera is switched on, they explode with energy. They are real gentlemen. They have perfect comic timing and this is how the movie stars in the West used to be. I miss this in Hollywood.
Sean is our Big B...
Sean Connery is our Amitabh Bachchan. He commands a lot of respect and I have had a lot of good luck working with the actors in Hollywood as well. Also I think Preity Zinta and Rani Mukherji have the ability to make it big in Hollywood. My own movie will open the doors for a lot of actors from India in Hollywood.