Kingsley: India to become force in western cinema

Ben Kingsley said today he expected Indian finance and creativity to become a driving force in western cinema in the coming years.

The tough economic climate meant western cinema was “going for the safe option”, he said, and needed an injection of originality.

The Oscar-winning actor recently completed a movie with Indian screen legend Amritabh Bachchan, and Sylvester Stallone has made a new Hollywood-Bollywood collaboration.

In Teen Patti – “three cards” in English – Kingsley plays a mathematician who helps a reclusive genius, played by Bachchan, develop an extraordinary discovery about the nature of probability.

“I think that you will find a great deal of financing for very large budget films will come out of India, and will involve some artistic control on the part of the Indian producers and co-producers and it’s only right would be extremely welcome and necessary,” he said.

“We need that injection in our films in the west of that originality, that lack of cynicism, and a feel for what is ancient and beautiful and true.

“Because the economic climate is so terrifying, we’re going for the safe option and the safe option tends to be a copy of what’s done before.

“You get so many layers – a copy of a copy of a copy – it loses its sense of integrity.”

Kingsley, 65, said that while the traditional Bollywood song and dance routines did not appeal to him, the energy and high production values of Indian cinema offered huge potential.

Speaking after Teen Patti’s launch at the Cannes Film Festival, he said: “What I’m interested in is combining elements, so the massive production values from these films can be so easily translated into an extraordinary, monumentally large battle scene, or the elevation of a building.

“You simply switch the energy of the music and dance into the energy of the battle.”

Kingsley won an Oscar in 1982 for his performance as Gandhi in Richard Attenborough’s film, and he said the experience had fired a desire to appear in an Indian film.

“Ever since I left India after filming Gandhi I wanted to participate,” he said.

“I can’t go back to India as a tourist – I can’t do it, I need to be creating or doing or telling something, a story or something in India.

“The ability to combine ancient tradition, mythology and faith with something that’s more modern than modern is effortless in India and it’s that that I find attractive.”

Teen Patti is due for UK release later this year.