The rich are
getting richer. The poor are poorer than ever. But beyond this stark reality
lies a dream, a hope and a love so true that it can ultimately provide the answers
to all of life's questions. In the movie Slumdog Millionaire, discover
why love is the greatest fortune one man can have.
Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees (Php 19 million) on India's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Arrested on suspicion of cheating, he tells the police the incredible story of his life on the streets, and of the girl he loved and lost. But what is a kid with no interest in money doing on the show? And how did he know all the answers?
A rags-to-riches story of a Mumbai slum dweller, Slumdog Millionaire is helmed by acclaimed director Danny Boyle (28 Days Later, The Beach, Trainspotting) and bagged eight major awards in the 81st Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Director. It also won five Critics' Choice awards, four Golden Globes, and seven BAFTA awards, including Best Film, as well as several film festival awards.
Director Danny Boyle regarded Simon Beaufoy's script of Slumdog Millionaire as a guiding light through the filmmaking process. Because of tight time constraints and challenging conditions, Boyle explains that it made sense to remain as faithful as possible to Beaufoy's blueprint.
When Boyle first arrived in Mumbai, the mixture of absolute poverty and the country's huge technical advancement fascinated him. "I've been to slums before but in different places in the world, like Kibera in Kenya but this was like ...there's this smell you get first of all...this incredible mixture of our excrement [it belongs to all of us] and then saffron. It's just this mixture of the sweet and the sour," he laughs.
The casting process took Boyle all over the US, Canada, the UK and India in search of the right actors that could deliver a convincing performance in English and also fit across the three ages of the story: 7, 13, and 18.
The intention had always been to shoot the film in English despite the fact that children from the Juhu slum in Mumbai would authentically speak Maharati, a local Hindi dialect. Many of the younger actors who could speak English were educated in middle class schools and, in the minds of the production, were unsuitable for two important reasons: their appearance and general behavior on camera, and the difficulties they might face filming in the slums within a community much removed from their own lives.
"Our casting director and co-director, Loveleen Tandan went out and did a quick translation. I think it's the toilet scene we have early in the movie and just got some young kids from the streets or from around, to play it in Hindi and they were hilarious. Suddenly they came to life. So it's a decision really that we arrived at by accident but which, I think, has given the movie a real added layer of authenticity. It has also enabled us to find those three incredible young child actors," shares producer Christian Colson.
Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail who plays the young Salim and Rubina Ali, who plays the young Latika, were eventually cast from the slums but have since been placed into education by the production. "We've managed to get them into school and hopefully they'll stay in the school until they're sixteen," says Boyle. "The last time I went back there, they'd started to pick up a bit of English. Rubina, especially, was talking to me in English, which is amazing and Azza is really talented at drawing, supposedly. He loves drawing and shading."
Boyle's difficulty in finding his adult Jamal was mainly one of ‘look.' Although castings were held in Mumbai, Calcutta, Delhi and Chennai, the team found that most of the candidates were too old for the part or were surprisingly the wrong shape. Until they found young actor Dev Patel.
"I went for four auditions--five actually and after every single audition I was like, ‘Damn it. I haven't got it,'" Dev Patel remembers of the casting process. "I've had to play emotional scenes, physical scenes and it's really taken it out of me," he says. "Danny really finds a way to get that right emotion out of you in a scene."
Beaufoy says the actress that Danny cast for Latika, Freida Pinto "...has got that extraordinary beauty alongside a strong sense of sadness about her, which we needed very much for her part in the film."
Indian co-director Loveleen Tandan contacted model Pinto's agent, saying there was a casting for the female lead. Pinto explains, "My agent said, ‘I think you should go for it since you are very interested in acting.' It was a rollercoaster ride to be honest because the first month after the audition with Loveleen, Danny came down for the test. I was really nervous because I had never met a director close up in person before...But after the sixth month, when my agent called and said, ‘You're on girl!' I was ecstatic, I just couldn't believe it until I actually went and signed my contract."
Shot on a modest $15 million budget, Slumdog Millionaire also stars Irrfan Khan, Madhur Mittal and Anil Kapoor, one of the most versatile and successful actors in Hindi films.
Love is the answer to life's simplest questions. Find out why as Slumdog Millionaire opens at your favorite theaters beginning April 11, 2009. A Viva International Pictures release.