One of the most interesting experiences that you go through as a writer/director when you reach out to actors is a ‘narration'.
A narration is narrating the story orally to actors, instead of them reading the script themselves. I might be wrong but I think this is a purely south Asian concept. So an actor will typically schedule two hours of their time so that you can meet them in person and orally recount the story in as much detail as possible. There are some advantages to this because you can set the tone of the film and interpret the text in the way you intend to shoot the film. A lot of producers also prefer getting narrations than reading the script on their own. I prefer to narrate the story orally without reading from a printout of the script, but I know a lot of people who read from the script and that works perfectly well too.
While working with Imtiaz, I had actually never seen him narrate the script to actors, why would I have? This process would have been happening behind the scenes, in the early stages when the project was being formalised. So I went into narrations with some vague ideas, and I did what I always do for strange situations- prepare my heart out.
My first round of narrations to studios and actors was a great initiation into what this industry really is. One of my most early narrations was to the head of a big studio. The studio head was known to be quite unpredictable and unnerving during narrations so I was suitably prepared. The narration began at 10 pm at night. In between the narration, the head of studio would stand up, stretch her legs… she ordered food, dinner for herself and sandwiches, she would call someone on her phone and yell at them.
I could understand why someone can get unnerved during this process; there was a total disregard for the person narrating the story. Having been thoroughly prepped to expect this sort of thing, I did not flinch. I just stopped, and waited for her to finish whatever it was she was doing and then would continue. I remember leaving the narration very amused and proud of myself for getting through it with a straight face.
Then there was the time when I was in a narration at a large studio to a packed conference room. At the end of the narration the creative producer told me ‘I smelled really nice. What perfume was I wearing?’ and I remember shrinking into my seat in complete horror, also realising that my narration was in vain and I was definitely not going to get this job. I was being judged as a woman, not as a potential director. Back to the drawing board. In between these narrations I spent a lot of time coordinating, doing follow-ups, and having a lot of sleepless nights. The process of pitching is SLOW and literally no one is in a hurry.
There is one particular narration that is carved in stone forever in my memory. After a really long period of back and forth, self-lamenting, anger and frustration I had finally landed a narration at one of my favourite production houses. As I sat in the taxi heading there, I remember thinking this would absolutely be the perfect place to work and I was absolutely going to kill it. I knew my script like the back of my hand, I knew the script was rock solid and I was confident about just everything around it.
I arrived about half an hour before the interview so I ducked into the washroom and I gave myself a pep talk in the washroom. I walked into their conference room, admiring all the posters of some of my absolute favourite films. I laughed around with the young junior studio executives and felt really comfortable and settled by the time the head of the creative department stepped in. The narration began very well. I was narrating a story with tremendous enthusiasm and passion and managed to crack some smiles and make eye-to-eye contact with everyone in the room. I could feel that I was going to close this. The vibe of the room was electric. Then suddenly, two thirds of the way into the narration the creative head got a phone call. He cut the call two-three times but the phone kept incessantly ringing. Finally he picked it up. His father had passed away. That moment was surreal, because the creative head (poor guy) was in a complete state of shock, understandably so. He simply told me his father passed away and picked up his bags and walked out of the room. I remember sitting there stunned for a few seconds, a little unsure of what to do next. The meeting was over. A couple of the junior executives ushered me out, equally stunned. He was gone. And so was this opportunity. I got out of the building eventually and made my way home in a daze. Somebody called me later and said we would reschedule in a few weeks. We never rescheduled.
Once a narration ends, more often than not you have to wait for a couple of weeks or even longer to get a final answer from the studio. Sometimes another narration is scheduled, but with different people, more higher-ups. Almost all the time, these narrations are high pressure; time sensitive encounters with different ‘turns and twists’. They are very hard to predict. One of my craziest narrations to an actor was when I was interrupted in the middle of my narration by a very famous well-known director who dropped in unscheduled for a narration or meeting of his own. I could tell the actor I was narrating to was intrigued by my script, but increasingly uncomfortable at having the other director sitting in the waiting room. It was a miserable experience for both of us.
For Dear Maya, my fondest narration was the one to director Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra. I had a small male cameo in my film for the part opposite Manisha Koirala and I thought he would be wonderful in the part. He was a personal hero of mine so there were so many layers to our first meeting. I was nervous, but he was really warm and unassuming. I remember being so filled up with my story and narrating it to him with so much energy and verve that I even forgot he was in the room. At the end of it, Rakeysh Sir was moved by the story and agreed to be a part of my film even though I was a complete stranger to him and we had never met before. Life came full circle for me in that moment, because it was his film Rang De Basanti that had brought me to Mumbai in the first place. I’ll never forget it.
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