Gauahar Khan says she was too pretty for Slumdog Millionaire. (Photo: Gauahar Khan/Instagram)Gauahar Khan in an interview revealed that she appeared for five rounds of auditions for the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire, but director Danny Boyle couldn’t picture her as someone from the slums, with her face. She said that she has lost out on several roles over the years, because she’s too ‘good-looking’.
In an interview with Film Companion, Gauahar said that Danny Boyle was so impressed with her performance in the audition that he couldn’t believe that she had trained in India. But she assured him that she had.
“One of the biggest projects I lost in my life was because I was too good looking for it, and it was Slumdog millionaire. I have met Danny Boyle, and I have done five rounds of auditions for it. After the fifth round he said ‘You’re a fantastic actor, are you sure you’re trained in India?’ At that time, I had hardly any experience, and I said ‘I’ve trained in India’. He said, ‘You speak like an actor who is from out of India, not from India, so how do you have this experience?’ I said, ‘Sir I don’t know, I just try and do it every single day’. He said ‘You are such a fab actor but somehow I won’t be able to cast you here because I have to match three age groups and I can’t place you in a slum with your face. I said, ‘I can be in a slum, try me’,” Gauahar said, adding that just the fact that Danny Boyle thought she was a good actor is good enough.
Citing another example, Gauahar said, “In Rocket Singh, the endeavour was to make me not so good-looking. Shimit sir would say, ‘iski aankho pe aur pink lagao, ispe aur jarring lipstick lagao’, because that was the look, that was the character. Usko lagta that woh badi fashionable hai, but she was not meant to look super good-looking… I would reach the set and Shimit sir would still say ‘Bahaut pretty lag rahi hai, isko kuch aur green karo’, and in my heart I’m like, ‘Meri pehli film hai!’.”
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Slumdog Millionaire became a blockbuster hit at the box office, and won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2009. It starred Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor and others. In a mostly forgotten footnote, Loveleen Tandan served as co-director on the film, a role for which she was credited, but hardly ever felicitated, even as Boyle swept the awards circuit that year.
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