Matthew Simmons/Getty Images Ashok Amritraj, hollywood producer, at a party in California on Nov. 5, 2005.Ashok Amritraj was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu into a family of tennis players. He went on to play the Wimbledon and the U.S. Open championship, but his passion for cinema found him a second career. He began producing Hollywood movies in 1984, and has more than a hundred movies to his credit.
India Ink spoke to Mr. Amritraj on his recent visit to New Delhi, for the release of his memoir “Advantage: Hollywood†at the “Big Picture Summitâ€, a media and entertainment conference organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry.
What is your book “Advantage: Hollywood†about?
Some years back, Harper Collins approached me to write about my life but I wasn’t interested. About three years ago, my father got Alzheimer’s. I began recording conversations with my mom and dad and began asking them about their life, their stories. When I heard the recording, I felt compelled to put it on paper. I called Harper back and began work on the book.
“Advantage Hollywood†begins in 1991, the year I got married, the year “Double Impact,†[an action movie he produced] was released and became successful. That was the turning point of my life.
On one level, the book is a journey from Chennai to Wimbledon to Hollywood. On another level, it is about banging on the doors of Hollywood, struggling to make it. It is an immigrant success story. But a large part of the book is the background, moral values, and the principles that my parents instilled in me while growing up in Chennai.
What are your expectations from the book?
I have no expectations. Writing has been a cathartic and wonderful experience for me. I have memories of tennis, of childhood, of movie theaters I went to when I was seven or eight years old. My friends from that time are the same friends who come and play tennis at my house today. I hope kids in schools and colleges read it and enjoy it. It is a story for the next generation.
What led you to choose a second career as a Hollywood movie producer? How easy or hard was it to get a break in Hollywood?
Growing up in Chennai, I watched a lot of popular Hollywood movies with my parents. Those days, the movies came to India several years late. But the joy of sitting in a dark, dank theater and watching the big screen light up made a deep impression on me. When I got to Los Angeles in 1975, I knew a lot of people in the movie business because of my career as a tennis player. I visited the studios, met the actors, and filmmakers, and those images of watching the screen light up as a child returned to me. I knew I wanted to be in the movies. It took five years and a lot of bad tennis games before I could make my first independent movie. I followed it with several years of work with television networks till “Double Impact†happened to me.
How hard or easy was it to write about your life?
The leap from being a tennis player to a Hollywood producer was an extraordinary one. I wouldn’t take the leap to become a writer. I wrote the book from the heart. I am very much a perfectionist. People often ask me what is the toughest part of the movie business and I tell them it is finding a great screenplay. Writing an amazing novel or screenplay requires real talent. I have a great deal of respect for writers. The written word is very powerful.
Tell us about your latest movie “Life of Crime�
We just completed the first print in order to get it to Toronto Film Festival (The movie is the closing film at the Festival). I have been working on it for a few months. It has terrific performances by Jennifer Aniston, Isla Fisher and Tim Robbins. It’s a really good cast. I’m very excited about it. I’m very happy with the response and the reviews we got from a screening recently.
Have you thought of producing an Indian movie?
It is all about the writing. I get approached all the time by Indian directors and actors. I think the Indian movie industry needs to pay more attention to the writers and they need to get a lot more credit. I would like to see it as a writer’s film rather than a director’s film.
One has to find ideas that are terrific and different. It is just the question of finding a great idea that one can think will travel a little bit outside and not just cater to India and to the NRI (non resident Indian) audience. My creative team is always looking. I hope we find one soon.
How do you see the Indian movies performing on a global stage?
I go in and out watching Indian films. One shouldn’t mix up Indian language films with those that are made in India by foreign filmmakers. If you talk about “Life of Pi†and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotelâ€, they are not Indian films. If you talk about Indian language movies made by Indian directors, the audience is still the NRI audience abroad. I don’t think any Indian film has moved further than that.
I hear “The Lunchbox†is pretty good. The first couple of films that end up crossing over to a white audience or a non-Indian audience will make a big difference. The question is how do you get to that kind of threshold that the films gross $10 billion in a non-Indian market. You are not global phenomena yet. Until that happens, I don’t think the spotlight will change on Indian cinema.
What else are you working on?
I have worked very closely with the United Nations on a variety of issues. I am hosting an upcoming show known as “Chance of a Lifetime.†I have brought together a group of documentary filmmakers from India, China, and United Arab Emirates for the show. They work in multi-national teams and tell stories around the Millennium Development goals of the United Nations, a wide range of themes from violence against women to access to water.
As an immigrant Indian, who has lived in the United States for a long time, how do you see the increasing sexual violence against women in India?
Indian society faces a challenge here. It is at the crossroads. You have a part of society that is westernized and has more of a global approach and another part of society is holding on to the older ways. And you have this new world of information, connectivity, and social media. It is much more complicated than when I was growing up. I hope the violence against women is addressed carefully and severely.
(The interview was lightly edited and condensed.)
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