Accents are an important part of embodying a character. To get into the skin of the character, its times, its setting and its lifestyle; the actor needs to go through a rigor from perfecting the look, mannerisms and the accent. Yet in Bollywood getting accents right has never been very important.
Now there are three types of inadequate accent deployers in Hindi cinema.
First is the "Self Subsumed" Variety of actors. Mostly these were actors of yesteryears, who rarely displayed interest in nailing accents, barring a few exceptions. They were kind of subsumed by their own stardom and felt that people would forget the linguistic setting of the character and just jump into the joyride of masturbating over their stars. You never paid to see the world of the protagonist come to life but you paid to see a display of the star’s persona, through the medium of a character. The star was the bone, muscle and skin, while the character was relegated to being a fairness cream to dress up this hollow stardom. These actors have somewhat met their expiry date, for modern audiences have grown intelligent and with the media blasting news and gossip information 24*7, the aura of these stars has disappeared. This requires of the modern actor to set aside his persona and work harder to build the myth-not of himself but out of the character.
The second type is that of the "Convenientalist” who attempted to pick and drop accents based on convenience. Wherever a scene requires emoting and a certain sense of disconnecting with the setting and requires the actor to rely on instincts and internalization of the emotion or wherever there is a certain emphasis on psychology, these actors gave up the accents. To their credit this resulted in better connect with the emotional truth of the character, though severely compromising the actual physical realism of the same. As Shilpa Shetty while preparing for the role of a Marathi maid in Rishtey(a pretty lousy movie at that), keeping the Marathi accent while portraying the role of the maid was the toughest but a challenge, she managed admirably in an otherwise pathetic movie. These actors are probably the more naturally gifted when it comes to acting but not as hardworking, allowing their actual personas to superimpose while portraying the character in hand. These unlike what many would know are probably closer to Strasburg’s method school of acting. Method acting being a word much maligned in India. Basically it involves portraying the emotional truth of the character by creating a commonality with one’s own life, drawing inspiration not just from the character but also finding connects with the thespian’s own experience.
The third is the “Stereotyper”. These are generally those up and coming actors who are forced to look for a quick fix solution, when there is no accent coach available, no prior experience of the character’s milieu for the actor and where the director is breathing down the throats of the upcoming actor to get the lines right. The director is a bully and the fresh face is kind of terrorized by the puppeteer. It is not a question of the character or the film anymore but the desire to break it big and get bread and butter on the table, clear the room rents. Such actors rarely have the time or the means to nail the accent. They prefer to compromise with a stop gap arrangement. It is like a brokered truce between them and the world of the protagonist. They decide that whatever stereotypes exist on the linguistic cultural milieu of the character, they would amplify those while subduing everything else. This way they would portray certain authenticities and at the same time play it safe, when their lack of awareness gives them no other option. This is a major travesty since an up and coming actor could fall prey to this lax behavior and shun the moral responsibility to the life of the character in the near future. It’s a bad practice which later in his career, he would have ended up perfecting and put him in the stage of inertia when it comes to this aspect of the role preparation. The respect for the lack of authenticity of the character, if gone from the minds of young actors; leads to loss of passion for the craft. This further reduces their work to a more hit the mark, get set and go type of portrayal. This is the type of work that evokes blazes of talent underneath a sea of mediocrity.
It needs to be seen as to how much Bollywood cinema itself would reform from within and the extent to which cinema goers deplore these types and elevate the process of nailing the accent, to its desired place among the stages of character preparation. In that regard it is a refreshing to see younger directors going like Habib Faisal, making their actors go through workshops, no matter how experienced they are in the industry. The younger crew is not intimated by the older echelons of stardom and is pushing new boundaries in filmmaking, one which is more professional and less egotistical than the days of the yore. The advent of accent coaches and on set trainers for accents has been a welcome change and is likely to improve the situation. But this is merely a cure and the process of imbibing the authentic accent must be an important part of every aspiring actor’s repertoire without which the consumer (the moviegoers), must reject the dish given to them. Until this happens we would be subjected to the cruel torture of Mithunda mouthing Tamil, with Coconut water in hand and lungis knee high, staring at us in cinematic irony.
Now there are three types of inadequate accent deployers in Hindi cinema.
First is the "Self Subsumed" Variety of actors. Mostly these were actors of yesteryears, who rarely displayed interest in nailing accents, barring a few exceptions. They were kind of subsumed by their own stardom and felt that people would forget the linguistic setting of the character and just jump into the joyride of masturbating over their stars. You never paid to see the world of the protagonist come to life but you paid to see a display of the star’s persona, through the medium of a character. The star was the bone, muscle and skin, while the character was relegated to being a fairness cream to dress up this hollow stardom. These actors have somewhat met their expiry date, for modern audiences have grown intelligent and with the media blasting news and gossip information 24*7, the aura of these stars has disappeared. This requires of the modern actor to set aside his persona and work harder to build the myth-not of himself but out of the character.
The second type is that of the "Convenientalist” who attempted to pick and drop accents based on convenience. Wherever a scene requires emoting and a certain sense of disconnecting with the setting and requires the actor to rely on instincts and internalization of the emotion or wherever there is a certain emphasis on psychology, these actors gave up the accents. To their credit this resulted in better connect with the emotional truth of the character, though severely compromising the actual physical realism of the same. As Shilpa Shetty while preparing for the role of a Marathi maid in Rishtey(a pretty lousy movie at that), keeping the Marathi accent while portraying the role of the maid was the toughest but a challenge, she managed admirably in an otherwise pathetic movie. These actors are probably the more naturally gifted when it comes to acting but not as hardworking, allowing their actual personas to superimpose while portraying the character in hand. These unlike what many would know are probably closer to Strasburg’s method school of acting. Method acting being a word much maligned in India. Basically it involves portraying the emotional truth of the character by creating a commonality with one’s own life, drawing inspiration not just from the character but also finding connects with the thespian’s own experience.
The third is the “Stereotyper”. These are generally those up and coming actors who are forced to look for a quick fix solution, when there is no accent coach available, no prior experience of the character’s milieu for the actor and where the director is breathing down the throats of the upcoming actor to get the lines right. The director is a bully and the fresh face is kind of terrorized by the puppeteer. It is not a question of the character or the film anymore but the desire to break it big and get bread and butter on the table, clear the room rents. Such actors rarely have the time or the means to nail the accent. They prefer to compromise with a stop gap arrangement. It is like a brokered truce between them and the world of the protagonist. They decide that whatever stereotypes exist on the linguistic cultural milieu of the character, they would amplify those while subduing everything else. This way they would portray certain authenticities and at the same time play it safe, when their lack of awareness gives them no other option. This is a major travesty since an up and coming actor could fall prey to this lax behavior and shun the moral responsibility to the life of the character in the near future. It’s a bad practice which later in his career, he would have ended up perfecting and put him in the stage of inertia when it comes to this aspect of the role preparation. The respect for the lack of authenticity of the character, if gone from the minds of young actors; leads to loss of passion for the craft. This further reduces their work to a more hit the mark, get set and go type of portrayal. This is the type of work that evokes blazes of talent underneath a sea of mediocrity.
It needs to be seen as to how much Bollywood cinema itself would reform from within and the extent to which cinema goers deplore these types and elevate the process of nailing the accent, to its desired place among the stages of character preparation. In that regard it is a refreshing to see younger directors going like Habib Faisal, making their actors go through workshops, no matter how experienced they are in the industry. The younger crew is not intimated by the older echelons of stardom and is pushing new boundaries in filmmaking, one which is more professional and less egotistical than the days of the yore. The advent of accent coaches and on set trainers for accents has been a welcome change and is likely to improve the situation. But this is merely a cure and the process of imbibing the authentic accent must be an important part of every aspiring actor’s repertoire without which the consumer (the moviegoers), must reject the dish given to them. Until this happens we would be subjected to the cruel torture of Mithunda mouthing Tamil, with Coconut water in hand and lungis knee high, staring at us in cinematic irony.
