Madhur Mittal as Dinesh Patel in Million Dollar Arm

When Madhur Mittal was just seven, he won Boogie Woogie, the reality dance competition on Sony. The Agra boy also went on to do bit roles in Bollywood films like One 2 Ka 4, but it was Slumdog Millionaire, where he played Salim, that changed his life. While his co-stars Dev, Freida Pinto and Anil Kapoor cashed in on the buzz around the film in Hollywood quickly, Madhur has been a little slow off the mark. But he is back in theatres with the Disney film Million Dollar Arm.

Where did you disappear after Slumdog Millionaire?

(Laughs) I was asking myself that. (Pauses) I was naive. I didn’t know how Hollywood works. You need to have a manager and an agent to get any work. I came back after the Oscars without having signed on with anyone. So, I was sitting here at home waiting for a call… that never came. About a year later when I got myself an agent, so many people told me that they wanted to work with me then, but didn’t know how to get in touch.

Danny (Boyle) wanted me to do Trance (a 2013 film starring James McAvoy and Rosario Dawson), but I couldn’t because I had already signed to do a British TV series called Kidnap and Ransom. So, I lost out on the amazing opportunity. But I have been working. I did Kidnap and Ransom and also a TV movie called Treasure Island that also stars Donald Sutherland, Eddie Izzard and Elijah Wood. I have been invited to do acting workshops all over the world, from Bosnia to Mexico.

I love travelling, so I have been backpacking across countries. The last trip I did was three months in Greece and another three months in Paris. And then Million Dollar Arm happened.

What kind of preparation did you have to go through for Million Dollar Arm?

Physically, this was the most taxing film I have ever done. Suraj (Sharma, who plays Rinku Singh) and I had to be able to pitch. We trained in Delhi for about three weeks. We had trainers from the US working with us. Apart from learning baseball, we also had to look buff like baseball players and both Suraj and I were pretty scrawny. We don’t look like the typical Bollywood types (laughs). So, we had to put on weight and develop muscle. The training was fun but also very exhausting.

You have great chemistry with Suraj in the film. What did you bond over?

I met Suraj for the first time during our last audition in Mumbai and we hit it off immediately. We got along like a house on fire from the word ‘go’ and it came naturally. I guess it had something to do with the fact that we had had fairly similar work experiences. Both of us come from non-film backgrounds and we worked with two amazing directors in films that went big internationally and opened up the world for us. We swapped stories about Ang (Lee) and Danny (Boyle) and our experiences at the Oscars and the various red carpets.

Did you get to meet the real-life Dinesh Patel, who you play in the film?

I did. Dinesh helped us during our baseball training. He is the real deal. Despite all the successes, he is still so rooted. He never lost who he is in the glitz and glamour of professional baseball.

What was it like working with Jon Hamm?

What a gentleman! He is a great co-actor to have. He would set the tone for the scene. All we had to do was tune into his frequency and follow his lead. If it was a fun scene, he’d walk in all upbeat and shoot the breeze with us. If we were shooting an intense scene, he’d be all closed and not talk to anyone. I learnt not just about acting from Jon, I learnt how to be a man… how a man should carry himself.

After having been part of a film that swept the Oscars, what were your criteria for the work you want to do?

Even if Slumdog hadn’t won the accolades that it did, we knew that we had made a good film. And that’s exactly the kind of work I want to do. Accolades don’t matter. At the end of the day, I want to be the best that I can be. I haven’t done a lot of work, but everything I have done has been different. And I want to keep doing that.

You had done bit roles in films like Kahin Pyaar Naa Ho Jaaye and One 2 Ka 4. Did Bollywood not come calling after Slumdog, or is your heart set only on Hollywood now?

Absolutely not. I just want to work. If it’s an interesting part, I’ll also do a Chinese or Mexican film. The kind of work I want to do doesn’t come to actors who look like me in Bollywood... (pauses) but things are changing. There are exciting directors like Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee and Q who are changing the game. Hopefully, someday soon they will have a meaty part for me to sink my teeth into.

Are you in touch with any of your Slumdog co-stars?

We will always be in touch. What the film did for all of us is tremendous. It changed our lives forever. And it’s that shared experience that binds us. Dev is a brother for life. Freida is one of the sweetest people I know. Whenever Danny comes to Mumbai, he tries to get all of us together, which is always fun.

Karishma Upadhyay