Sometimes a boy is the best man there is

No accounting of the making of this film would be complete without an entire section devoted to our lead boy, Rudraksh Jaiswal. So here goes.

When I first came up with the idea for this film, nearly five years ago(!), I knew right away that the project - its viability and its excellence - would depend, in large part, on the actor who played the film's young male protagonist. Our boy hero. And I'd heard stories throughout film school, and in the years since, about the incredible challenges of finding good child actors. Add to that the fact that boys at the age of 13-14 tend to be complicated, often withdrawn, as they deal with the intensity of the onset of adolescence. And of course, I had never directed anyone under the age of 20. And this boy would have to carry our film!

But the story was too compelling for me to sit on, and so I began the years long process of crafting it, often quietly wondering if I would find a boy who could pull off the role of Bharat, the 14-year old at the heart of the film. The boy would have to be (or be able to play, which at this age might be the same thing) a proper middle-class Indian city kid, just leaving behind childhood, but not yet an adult; he would have to be a combination of earnest and bold, moody and sweet, intelligent and yet not fully familiar with the ways of the world . As some have pointed out, not too dissimilar from who I was at his age (but more on that later).

When the auditions began it was clear that it would be a long search. The typical kid actor pool in Mumbai was filled with young boys who had appeared in Indian TV commercials and terrible TV shows. Overacting and appearing "cute" it seemed was the standard. It was funny to see the mothers who accompanied the kids, run dialog with them in the waiting room, and chat with the other moms who they had presumably seen just yesterday at another audition. Whenever I walked through the room, a hush would descend. The moms would all smile at the mythical director and some would try to push their kid in front of me. Everyone was sweet and well behaved but I couldn't help thinking, if only these people knew they were talking just to someone who had grown up around the corner from them in far from special surroundings. Sometimes there would be a kid too old for the part, someone who had clearly been cuter when he was just a year or two younger, someone who had been on TV a lot but adolescence had not been kind and he had come out on the other side, metamorphosed into an almost-man, and not always a pretty one. Some of the kids were really eager but simply too young. Some were too cute, some too shy, some too fat, some too thin. Some had a poor command of English, and our lead boy would have to be nearly as facile in English as he would in Hindi.

I sat in on all the auditions for the first few days only to become increasingly anxious until I was finally told by the casting team that I need not be there every day, that I can go in and out, and they would arrange callbacks for me of the actors they found to be good. Under the pressure of dozens of other tasks on the project, I gave in. Days went by and they sent me clips of kids they thought were good, but didn't work for me. As I've already mentioned, one day I walked in to the casting room and the kid that happened to be auditioning was Rudraksh Jaiswal. I watched from a corner of the room as he spoke the lines I had written. I began to lean forward in my chair as I saw he was neither overacting, nor trying to be cute. He seemed, in fact, bothered by something I couldn't identify. There was an honesty in his face that I had been looking for. I stepped in and thanked him when he was done with the scene and asked him if he would do another right then. He sat down and read it and a few minutes later, nodded at me very seriously to say he was ready. We did another scene - a tough emotional one. We worked through it, doing it a few times, and each time he responded, understanding my directions and internalizing them. I knew. This was the kid!

Over the coming days, I got to know Rudraksh well. I visited him at his home a couple of times, chatted with his mother and sister, both of whom clearly loved him deeply. I saw in their family the kind of simplicity I had grown up with. Once we had cast Shamita, we began rehearsals, a process that allowed us all to get closer and trust each other. I recall one day, we rehearsed the most emotional scene between the two leads, and after one round, I told Rudy that in the actual film, this might be a moment that Bharat, unable to fight anymore, would cry. Once again Rudy got that look that I would end up becoming very familiar with, where he would go into the depths of his own mind to concentrate. When he came back out he wanted to rehearse the scene again. And this time he cried and it was so real it hurt me to watch him in pain.

On an American film set, I can imagine that the crew might be fond of the child actors but everyone would stay away to maintain the professionalism and coldness that is ingrained in American society. But on an Indian film set, things are different. The crew and cast on The Tenant all ate and laughed and cried together for that month and a half. We became close and turned into a family of sorts with Rudy becoming the beloved son. There was not a crew member who didn't love chatting with him, teasing him, or goofing off with him. Often, Pankaj, Nuthan, or I would make jokes and tease him about how innocent he was, just like older boys would. As much as we wanted him to grow up, we also loved the innocence in him that we all remembered having once. Rudy and I began every day with him seeking me out and giving me a big hug. I looked forward to it every day. One of the best parts of directing Rudraksh was that he was always serious, always thinking, and always ready to try harder. But more importantly for me, was my connection to him as a person. I mentioned half-jokingly to someone on set that never before had someone evoked in me a paternal feeling. For a man with no children, the feeling of protectiveness and paternal love I had towards Rudy from quite early on was a new one. I loved him like he was my son.

Since I've returned Rudy and I have chatted a few times and I've been watching his performances in the edit room. And I couldn't be prouder of his work. I think that when this film gets out, audiences will see what I see and Rudy will be beloved by many more.

P.S. When I wrote this film, the central events were not based on my childhood and the main character was not based on me. However, we did end up shooting in the very building I grew up in, and I did cast a kid as the lead who looked and acted a heck of a lot like I used to. Here's some pics.