Cindy Ord/Getty Images Mira Nair at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York on Saturday.NEW YORK CITYâ€" On Friday, April 26, the Mira Nair-directed thriller “The Reluctant Fundamentalist†opens in theaters across the United States. The film, based on the novel by the Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid, stars the British actor Riz Ahmed as a possible terrorist.
The film begins at an outdoor café in Lahore in 2011 with Mr. Ahmed as Changez, a young Pakistani, telling an American journalist called Bobby, played by Liev Schreiber, his life story and how he ended up back in his homeland. A Princeton graduate, he landed a job at a prestigious financial firm in New York, fell in love with Erica, played by Kate Hudson and was on his way to having it all when Sept. 11, 2001 intervened. He was strip searched and interrogated because of his Pakistani origin, which led him to start questioning who he really was.
Though the movie, which cuts between the café and Changez’s past, is set mostly in Lahore and New York, it was shot in New York, Old Delhi and Atlanta. The cast also includes Kiefer Sutherland, Om Puri and Shabana Azmi.
A few days before its U.S. debut, Ms. Nair sat down with India Ink at the W Hotel in Union Square, New York, and talked about bringing the story to life.
Why did you choose to turn “The Reluctant Fundamentalist†into a film?
The bolt of inspiration came from visiting Lahore for the first time in 2004. I went because my films are popular there, and I was invited by the Daily Times, the newspaper, to speak. It was a dazzling encounter. I was moved by the extraordinary creative expression there in poetry, film and theater. It was so different than the Pakistan one read about in the newspapers, and I was jolted into wanting to make a book about modern-day Pakistan. I read Mohsin’s book in galley form about 18 months after visiting Lahore and felt it would give me the chance to make that film.
Ishaan Nair/IFC Films.. A still from the film “The Reluctant Fundamentalistâ€.Part of the film is set in Pakistan, but these scenes were actually shot in Old Delhi. Why?
We couldn’t get insurance to go to Pakistan because of the security. But I really loved Lahore so what we did was hire a second crew and did all the exteriors there, like the streets. Also, Delhi and Lahore are like twin cities â€" built in the same century, with similar architecture, so we found Lahore in Delhi.
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What adaptations did you make from the novel and why?
The big change is that the book is a monologue. Changez speaks to an American who does not say a word. We had to create Bobby Lincoln (Liev Schreiber) as a full-fledged character with as much complexity as Changez has. We also added a third act to the movie, in which Changez comes to America, rises, captures the American dream and then returns to Pakistan.
I wanted to know what he did in Pakistan when he came back. And, Changez has a brother in the book whom I made into a sister, because women are such a vibrant part of that universe, and you never see them.
Larry Busacca/Getty Images North America From left, director Mira Nair, actor Riz Ahmed, Jonathan Sehring, president of IFC Films, and author Mohsin Hamid at the premiere of the film “The Reluctant Fundamentalist†at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York on Monday.How much did you involve Mohsin in turning the book into a screenplay and during the filming?
He was with us from the very beginning. I would share various drafts after that with him and various cuts with him. He and his wife are also in the beginning of the movie in a scene where they are coming out of the movie theater. I always put my authors in their movies. Jhumpa [Lahiri] was in “The Namesake†as well.
Was it a challenge to find the right Changez?
It took me a year and a half to find him. I started in Pakistan by auditioning actors there, then went to India, then America and then the last stop was London. My casting director told me that there is one man you have to see, and that was Riz Ahmed. He had sent me some audition tapes like a year before. They were these dorky tapes against a green background, and I never took them seriously. But when he walked into the room, I gave him a cold reading, and he just nailed it and completely moved me, and I thought “This is my Changez.â€
Let’s talk about the Boston bombings and the speculation that followed. Several people were wrongly suspected of being the bombers, including the Indian-American student Sunil Tripathi, who was born in the U.S., but his parents were from India. Is this kind of false suspicion, a theme in the movie, still common more than a decade after 9/11?
We have not learned the lessons of 9/11. This wrongful suspicion, racial hatred and profiling is what I keep seeing. In the three days before the bombers were found, there was so much rampant rumor-mongering. The more this kind of knee-jerk profiling happens, the more America will be fragmented into an “us and them†kind of a situation. We are seeing that the path that was taken post 9/11 has not contributed to any kind of understanding.
Ishaan Nair/IFC Films Director Mira Nair and actor Liev Schreiber on the sets of the film.What’s your next project?
It is taking “Monsoon Wedding†to Broadway as a musical. It is going to be out, Inshallah, at the end of next year.
(The interview has been lightly edited and condensed.)
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