Every actor faces challenges when they are playing a role on the big screen. While in LA, I had a chance to sit down with Madhur Mittal and Suraj Sharma, stars of Million Dollar Arm, and chat with them about their latest project.
I did receive an all expenses paid trip courtesy of Disney to attend this interview, but all awesome questions, witty banter, and hysterical commentary are my own.
Madhur Mittal is known for his role in Slumdog Millionaire, while Suraj Sharma is more known for his recent role in Life of Pi. Both actors hale from India, so it was interesting to ask them what it was like filming an American film in their homeland, and why they felt it was so important to get involved in the Million Dollar Arm project. Madhur laments
I think the first thing that really hit me was, this is a tremendous feat that these guys have achieved and I had no idea about these guys. Nobody in my family knew. None of my friends knew this story. And what these guys have achieved is something that nobody has ever done any sport in the history of mankind.
The passion both of them had to make sure that everyone knew about Rinku and Dinesh’s accomplishment in the Million Dollar Arm project was truly heartwarming. They felt, as actors, it was important to be involved in such an inspirational project to let not only Indians, but Americans as well, know just what amazing things these two kids accomplished.
When you are playing someone that is a real life person, sometimes there can be a lot of pressure to “get it right.” We asked Mittal and Sharma what it was like to play real life people rather than characters. Suraj shared,
Dinesh was with us in Delhi when we were training for baseball and he hung out with us a lot. But what he also did wast give us an insight hint of his mind, but he used to tell us all these stories and anecdotes of what happened when they were really going through. And that would really give us a lot of insight into how Rinku was at the point in time.
Beyond chatting about the story behind the film, it was really great to hear from Madhur and Suraj what fun they had on the set. It wasn’t all serious business while filming Million Dollar Arm. Neither had played a stitch of baseball before filming, so it was quite a learning experience for both of them. They both reminisced,
We actually had so much fun, just every day. It’s like we were quite a handful to keep in line. We were just too young kids, you know, and you give us a glove and ball, we would just keep playing all day long. They would literally have to drag us on set, but we had a lot of fun like in a lot of scenes.
It was a lot of fun to have a chance to sit down with Madhur Mittal and Suraj Sharma and chat with them about Million Dollar Arm. They had a lot in common with the real life characters they were playing, Rinku and Dinesh, both pairs were young kids that had no baseball experience and just wanted to find a way to make their families and their country proud. If their performances in Million Dollar Arm are any indication, you can expect to see a lot more great things from these two amazing young actors.
Million Dollar Arm is in theaters everywhere now! Make sure to check out my Million Dollar Arm Movie review, PLUS other exclusive interviews with the real life people and actors behind Million Dollar Arm!
saminder gumer says
i have not seen this movie but it looks good and they look like they did a good job in the trailers.