Ali Fazal on Hollywood: There’s more to give than we were led on to believe

Professionally 2021 was very interesting for Fazal who bagged some exciting projects in “Hindi and Hollywood films”.

“Getting to work with Vishal Bhardwaj is every actor’s dream and then sharing screen notes in Kandhar with Gerard Butler and other guys is fun. I think the turf has gotten bigger and there is a lot more to give than we were led on to believe from our side,” he shares, as he awaits the release of his next, co-starring Gal Gadot.

Personally, it was the other end of the spectrum for him “with losses” in his family. “I guess every family suffered during the second wave and honestly my heart goes out to everyone. We have a culture of ‘forget it and move on’ par wohi nahin ho raha pa raha hai. Maybe as artists we are empaths and sometimes all that happened feels like a dream as everyone seems to have moved on while others deal with their losses,” he elaborates.

Looking forward to this year, Fazal and his girlfriend-actor Richa Chadha’s first production, Girls Will Be Girls recently has received funding under the Aid aux cinemas du monde, a grant handed out by France’s Centre National du Cinema (CNC) and Institut Francais. “Richa and I are most excited about this and with the grant, we are taking baby steps. Experimentation on all kinds of mediums is our goal and we are looking to work with likeminded and not so likeminded artists,” says Fazal.

In a recent interview, talking about her career in Hollywood, actor Priyanka Chopra said that South Asian actors have to fight harder to get better roles in Hollywood and how to get lead parts or prominent roles in big commercial movies, it takes a lot of work. How has his journey been in the last four-five years of working in the West? “It’s been a journey of finding the right foothold. You got to throw yourself in the right pit. At times, projects are specify, like I can’t possibly start shooting for Mission Impossible as it is a Tom Cruise film. But with a film like Death On The Nile, the studio decided on a blind casting. Earlier my character was played by Geroge Kennedy and the character was older so the age was reduced. The colour didn’t bother anyone, so all these changes were exciting. In a weird way, the world is uniting and yet it is not. So, we have to slot ourselves to make headway,” he signs off.