Jimi Mistry got his first break as the rebellious son of a Salford chip shop owner in the stage play "East is East", a role he reprised on screen in 1999 after a run in EastEnders. Since then he's appeared in "Born Romantic", "The Mystic Masseur", and now "The Guru", his first film in the US.
What impact did landing the lead in "The Guru" have on your life?
I was away in Trinidad shooting "The Mystic Masseur" when I got the film. My partner was seven months pregnant and we suddenly made the decision to get married, but there was only one day free between jobs. I literally got back from work that night to find my suit pressed and the next day I got up, got dressed, and got married! Six weeks later we had our first child in New York.
Were there any parallels between your experiences making the film and those of your character?
I felt a bit like a fish out of water in New York, but going to India was even more of a culture shock - it was the first time I'd ever been there. We went right at the end of filming and, in some ways, I wish I'd gone there before we'd gone to New York so I would have known where my character was coming from.
How did working in the States differ from working in Britain?
Everything's on a bigger scale. And you're constantly watched. You don't go around the corner without an AD [assistant director] going, "Jimi Mistry's going to get a newspaper, Jimi Mistry's going to the loo..."
What contribution did you make to your character?
I worked very hard on this. I was constantly trying to come up with ideas to make the character work. I said to Daisy [director Daisy von Scherler Mayer] when I met her, "If the lead guy doesn't work, the film will fall. It doesn't matter how good everyone else is, you've got to believe in him." So we did a lot of work trying to make him likeable.
Ramu is treated as the next big thing in New York. Did the same thing happen to you?
It's hard enough working, never mind whether you're the next big thing or not. People put these labels on you and say, "Now you're going to America, now you're going to do this." The reality is that getting work is a challenge in itself in this industry.
