Benji: Thank you for taking the time out to talk to me.
Manish: Yeah, you got it.
Benji: First of all, how did you get involved in the project?
Manish: Well, it was a long, very thorough, but very interesting journey for me, probably the journey … the bigger journey to talk about here, but for me it started with this, with a voice-over audition I had at Freedom Works for another animated project and went in and I eventually, I read for the project and spoke to the casting director and we ended up just having a long chat and getting to know each other a little bit and that night, I got a phone call.
I think she had put the pieces together about Hundred-Foot Journey while I was in the room and that night I got a phone call to come back in and read for a movie, which they were not going to tell me anything about, but they gave me some signs and some materials to read that were from a different film, so I did that and I went in and I must have read it 20 times and still [inaudible 00:01:06] waste.
Then I did this interview and meet and greet and everything and all of these tapes were, everything was put on tape and sent to Steven Spielberg, who watched everything and then I got a phone call a couple of days later saying that he had watched everything and he was super excited about it and he wanted me to come back in and answer some … just sit down with Stacey Cider, who was running the studio and I did that.
These meetings took place over the course of five months and then I met Lasse Hallstrom in New York over lunch and the next day I got a phone call saying that Steven Spielberg wanted to hire you and I was stoked out of my mind.
Benji: So you mentioned Steven Spielberg. You had two famous producers on this movie with Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey.
Manish: Yes.
Benji: Did you interact with either of them while you were filming
Manish: Yes I definitely interacted with Oprah. She came to visit us on set and she just … I kind of got to know her over the course of the time she was there and I actually got to spend some good time with her. She even hung out with me and my family a lot and she’s just a really generous person, especially with her time and she really believed in the story and she believed in me and then more importantly, this is a story about a displaced family and a young man who is overcoming diversity because … and I think that is the story that she wants to tell and that’s the movie that she wants to make and it’s groundbreaking on its own and I think that those are the things that was gravitating towards.
We talked a lot about meditation and the mind, about her time and … She also talked to me about what she wants to put out there and one thing that was clear to me about both Steven and Oprah is that they’re drawn to things, movies and stories that have perspectives and points of view and that’s what the story is and it goes beyond racial and cultural limitations that we see so often and I think that for all those reasons, she and Steven Spielberg were drawn to it.
Benji: Now, this movie obviously has quite a lot of depth to it, but on this more superficial level, one thing that comes across is that you really come … you really show in the film that it acts like you can cook. Can you cook like that in real life or did you have to learn how to play with the knife?
Manish: I did have to learn. They put me in sort of cooking school at ULI. I was able to observe Indian kitchens. They’re very different and in the movie, there are four different kitchens and my character is evolving over the course of those four kitchens from a young boy to a grown man with very complicated responsibilities and in each kitchen you see a different stage of that journey and that evolution and I think the cooking also changes.
For me, because the cooking changed so much in the movie, I didn’t want to get too stuck to any one type because it just changes and evolves and another thing that I was super aware of is that my character’s sort of unique ability to change things up, change the style of cooking, add different ingredients to things and use his instinct ultimately are what made him unique and special and so I think I tried to do that myself on set when I was in the kitchen.
I tried to use my own instincts. I tried to challenge the old French recipes that I was reading all the time, especially the omelette scene, which ultimately wins the attention of Madame Mallory’s character.
Benji: Has working in a movie that has such a culinary focus changed the way you act when you have a dining experience. Has it made you more aware? Has it spoiled you?
Manish: Not really. I’m kind of … I just, like my character, I’m also very instinctual. If I like the food, I like the food. If I don’t like it, I don’t like it.
I definitely will say though, I have an appreciation for the art of cooking and I understand now what goes into it and how special it is and the kind of talent it takes to create really good food.
How I eat food is still the same. I’m still pretty much a garbage disposal.
Benji: You got to work with quite an amazing cast. That’s one thing that struck me is you have this big ensemble piece but every actor, from the smallest part to your starring role, has a lot of dimension in their performance.
What was it like to work with a cast that included Helen Mirren and other amazing actors?
Manish: Well, it was a learning experience because I got to observe two actors that I really look up to. Om Puri, I’ve been a fan of since … for a very, very long time and Helen Mirren, as we know, is a legend as an actor and I got to just observe these two great actors, learn from them, understand their process, take from it what I could and ask them questions.
Ultimately for me, everything I’ve done in my life has always been about asking questions. I’ve always asked a lot of questions and it’s how I gather my own intel and that’s what I did when I was working with them and it really was just like sort the greatest opportunity I could have gotten.
Om Puri and I became very good friends and we still are. We’re going to be lifelong friends. He is a very mischievous rascal and we ended playing pranks on all the other cast members and just having a lot of fun laughing the whole time, talking about … He also meditates a lot and we talked a lot about meditation and his life as a young actor. He is just super fun.
With Helen, it was interesting because she got me to try my first frog leg. I had never had frog legs before but she demanded that I try it and we just laughed a lot too.
She is very funny, she has got a wicked sense of humor, a dirty sense of humor and so we got on quite well because of that.
One of the most pivotal scenes with Helen, because we were working together during a scene that was important for both our characters because it’s a turning point for both of us in the movie, and we got to sort of work off of each other really well, especially that time.
Benji: Just one last thing before you go. For the folks that fell in love with you in “The Hundred-Foot Journey,” do you have any other upcoming projects where they might be able to see you?
Manish: Yes, I’m working on a movie called Stringer. It’s about a young man who moves to the Congo to become a freelance journalist in post-Mobutu Congo, which is essentially a crazy story about a kid who has no journalism experience but sort of goes to the most dangerous areas of the world to find a career and his higher purpose.
He graduates from Yale at the top of his class, has sort of a breakdown, which takes him to the Congo and it’s about his journey there and how he succeeds and how he finds his way.
It’s a super-interesting story. It’s called “Stringer.”
The Hundred-Foot Journey is now available in home video