We all know him as Dr Mohinder Suresh, the geneticist in 'Heroes' . But it wasn’t any superpower that landed Sendhil Ramamurthy the role.
He heard of it from his agent in the US and was initially shocked as the part was that of a 55-year-old scientist. Six gruelling auditions later, the creator of the show, Tim Kring himself changed the character to suit Sendhil.
“I can’t thank Tim enough for making me part of the team of 'Heroes'. The show changed my world. It opened many doors for me,” he says.
Sendhil caught the acting bug pretty late in life. “My family is full of doctors and in fact my father had put me in a hospital to do a summer job while I was in school. I hated it,” says the 35-year-old. “Later, when I was studying at Tuft University at Boston, it was compulsory to take art as one of the subjects. I chose acting and the rest is the proverbial history,” he adds.
He has done his fair share of theatre as well. “I did plays like 'A Servant of Two Masters' , 'West End' , 'Indian Ink' and 'East is East' before getting into films but with theatre the only problem is money.”
Sendhil has always maintained that he wouldn’t do typical Indian parts. Was it difficult to stick to such a stance?
“All the roles for which I was auditioning were for stereotypical characters,” he says.
And now coming to the present.
'It’s a Wonderful Afterlife' , says Sendhil, happened due to 'Heroes'. “If not for 'Heroes', Gurinder wouldn’t have known me. I had heard a lot about Gurinder and wanted to work with her. We met over lunch at London and spoke about the film. I readily agreed to be part of it,” he says.
His role is that of a British Indian police officer, who is undercover to investigate a string of murders happening in the Indian community in South Hall, London.
“It’s a complete entertainer. We shot for about eight weeks in London. I have a home in London, so it was all the more good for me to shoot in the city. There were many other locations where we shot and it was so good to be on sets. Gurinder is an enthusiastic person and the enthusiasm spreads,” he adds.
Sendhil has also acted in a Bollywood venture, 'Shor' . “My character is that of an NRI who comes to India, starts a non-profit organisation to help the poor but gets caught in the underworld, and is forced to take matter in his own hands,” says the actor.
Though the actor is open to working in Bollywood, he hasn’t seen too many Hindi films. “I want to watch '3 Idiots' . I do visit India once in a while because my paternal home is in Bangalore. But currently, I am busy with my new show 'Covert Affairs' which is being shot in Toronto,” he says.
Sendhil Snippets:
* He has exactly 15 Hindi words in 'Shor'. The actor said that he had 30 words to begin with but got them reduced to half as he doesn’t speak good Hindi
* He almost got married for a second time on the sets of 'A Wonderful Afterlife'. While shooting for the sequence, Gurinder had requested the pandits to recite real mantras. Sendhil does not understand Punjabi and so when Gurinder asked him to start taking pheras, he got worried. Throughout the shoot he asked her how many pheras were left, so as to make sure that he does not end up marrying again!
* He had asked Gurinder to extend a personal invite on his behalf to Deepika for a select screening of 'A Wonderful Afterlife'
* He helped his costar Goldy Notay gain weight (as she had to put on 25 kgs) by plying sweetmeats.