JOIN USIndia in my bones, says Ben
He recalls the “effortless movement from life to art and art to life” as he played Gandhi to Roshan Seth’s Nehru. The two are good friends and their real-life friendship echoed the Nehru-Gandhi relationship, he says. Kinglsey has gone on to play dozens of notable roles after ‘Gandhi’ but the Mahatma’s anger and his ability to turn it into a movement so intense was something he could relate to, he says.
Though the years between ‘Gandhi’ and now have stretched on, the Academy-award winning actor who is here to participate in the International Film Festival of India says the thread connecting him to India has not snapped one bit. “The moment I stepped off the plane I felt I had come home. India is in my bones.”
Kingsley is also hoping to raise funds in India for his new venture ‘Taj Mahal’ which will see him play the Moghul Emperor Shah Jahan with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as Mumtaz Mahal. The monument, he says, is a remarkable building that symbolises pain frozen in marble. “I am either very foolish or very brave to want to make this film, but I needed to explore how great was the pain,” says Kingsley who is on the hunt for a director for the venture. The Taj Mahal was built between 1632 and 1654.
The $27 million film for which shooting is to begin around 2010 has not been fully financed, Kingsley says.