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interview
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“I’m very in love with the fact that the camera is revolted by acting and loves behaviour.”
There’s little doubt that the role in House Of Sand And Fog had award-winning actor Sir Ben Kingsley’s name on it.
Not that film-maker Vadim Perelman knew that when he bought the book at Rome airport to read on a long plane journey. By the end of the flight the successful commercials director decided he wanted to film the story of two dis- possessed people whose battle for ownership of a house threatens to destroy them both.
His first, and indeed only, choice for the leading part of the once-powerful colonel Massoud Amir Behrani, who’s fled his native Iran and earns a living doing menial jobs in the US, was Kingsley.
What he didn’t know was that the star of Gandhi, Schindler’s List and Sexy Beast was way ahead of him. The actor had been sent a copy of Andre Dubus III’s book by the author’s wife, Fontaine, around the time of publication.
“She said in her letter that her husband had me in his mind’s eye while putting Behrani on the page,” Kingsley recalls.
“I guess there was a rough sketch, or starting point, or scaf- folding. The kind of thing you throw away when you’ve achieved the finished product. It was a step that he took in creat- ing Behrani, then hopefully dis- pensed with, as you do with scaf- folding after finishing the building.”
Kingsley’s name was men- tioned when Perelman spoke to Dubus about filming his book. “I
Photos main: Ben Kingsley; as Hood in Thunderbirds and in House Of Sand And Fog
thought, of course, perfect and from then he was the lynchpin of the casting process,” recalls the first-time feature director.
In the story, the proud Behrani is reduced to working on a road con- struction crew and in a conven- ience store to support his family.
Kingsley admits he’s been lucky enough not to have to take other jobs apart from acting. “I was auditioned by a Theatre-in- Education company when I was
20. They gave me the job, I start- ed with them, I went straight from them to rep, from rep to Chichester, and from Chichester to the RSC,” he says.
“I’ve never had to turn my hand to anything for monetary gain, other than pretending to be somebody else. I’m deeply fortunate.”
Perelman could relate person- ally to the immigrant experience, as he and his mother left their
portrait gallery
Why Sir Ben Kingsley was tailor-made for his latest acclaimed role. Steve Pratt reports