With A Nice Indian Boy now playing in theaters, we were recently granted an exclusive opportunity to sit down with director Roshan Sethi and his leading man Karan Soni (Deadpool & Wolverine; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; Miracle Workers) to talk about the critically acclaimed family wedding comedy.
The real-life couple and frequent collaborators walk me through turning this story into a full-length feature film, crafting authentic Indian American characters, casting Jonathan Groff, working with the incomparable Harish Patel and Zarna Garg, and a whole lot more!
Plus, Roshan also shares a hilarious story of his first time seeing Karan on screen!
The film's synopsis reads, "When Naveen (Karan Soni), a soft spoken doctor, finally brings his charming white-artist boyfriend Jay (Jonathan Groff) home to meet his traditional Indian family, misunderstandings and emotional revelations put everyone on edge. Despite facing uncomfortable truths about their own ideas of love and marriage, the family attempts to plan the big Indian wedding of Naveen and Jay’s dreams."
The cast features Karan Soni, Jonathan Groff, Sunita Mani, Zarna Garg, Harish Patel, Peter S. Kim, and Sas Goldberg.
A Nice Indian Boy is now playing in theaters across the United States and Canada!
Watch our full video interview with stars Karan Soni ("Naveen") and director Roshan Sethi below and/or keep scrolling to read the transcription. Plus, please remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more exclusive content!
ROHAN: Hey guys, how it's going?
ROSHAN: Hey Rohan - your name is like my name.
ROHAN: Yeah, it is - my brother's name is actually Roshan too.
ROSHAN: Oh, very cool!
ROHAN: While this movie is based on a play, it seems like you did make some changes as well - how much of your own personal experiences did you bring into the film?
ROSHAN: I would say it's like 50/50, maybe, I don't know. I'm kind of guessing percentages. But for example, he wasn't a doctor in either the play or in the first draft of the script, but we made him one. I'm also a doctor, simply because I'm Indian, and basically, I like the idea that the profession sort of closets you and forces you to deny your own sense of humanity in a strange way. So, little things like that made their way and then even odder things made their way in. For example, Karan, really, I wanted to do a kind of crazy wedding planner, because I just think the idea of a wedding planner from India was kind of funny to me. And Karan wrote that entire scene with that man who, I don't know what dregs of his brain, he pulled him out from, but there he was.
KARAN: I lived in India, and you know those scammer wedding planners, they're out there, just kind of on their Bluetooth, taking multiple weddings at the same time.
ROSHAN: So mercenary. And he says, Love is love and money is money. I was like, that’s perfect.
ROHAN: Karan, since Naveen is a doctor and Roshan is a doctor - and someone you know better than anyone else - how much of your performance were you able to pull from just knowing Roshan?
KARAN: The doctor thing really helped, actually, it's a small thing on the surface, but it really helped because the character is going through this thing where he's not being himself and he's quite shy and reserved, then by the end he's dancing at this wedding. So, the doctor thing kind of, like, feeds into that a lot, because doctors usually are not supposed to be super expressive, and it's easy to kind of go in the closet. And Roshan didn't come out till he was in his 30s, because partially in medicine, it's so easy to be closeted, because no one's asking you about your personal life or any of those stories.
You're just going from patient to patient, and like, not really interacting with them on a deeper level. But yes, there were also little moments, improv and stuff, like on the first date scene. Roshan wanted me to say stories about the hospital that, like, are boring to Jonathan's character, but I'm proudly saying them like they're the most interesting thing that's ever happened, and that's things from our relationship whenever he goes and works in the hospital, he's always like, a huge thing happened today, and it's the smallest thing, but in that world, it's a big deal that the Panera Bread has a new item on the hospital menu, or whatever. And, I always found that so funny, because that job seems so intense that, you don't get out much. So, when you're out, you're almost re-socializing yourself each time. So, there were little things like that that we were able to take from our lives.
ROHAN: Roshan, there's such an authenticity to this film and the characters. What was it like directing Zarna Garg and Harish Patel, who both have such well rounded character arcs in this movie?
ROSHAN: The writing is really good, both from Eric Randall, the screenwriter, and Madhuri Shekar, the playwright, for both of those characters, in particular, because it takes such a deep interest in them. Zarna is amazing. She's a comedic genius. She improvised a lot of her lines and also other people's lines in the movie. She's essentially playing herself, and there's nobody funnier.
Then, Harish Patel is maybe the most interesting person on Earth. Number one, he's not actually a Patel, he changed his last name to Patel because he was known for playing a Patel in a movie, and he didn't want to lose momentum, so he's actually, I forget what his actual last name is. Number two, he's from India and does not speak English very well. So, even though he's performing in English, he doesn't understand English if you speak it, especially as fast as I do.
So, I never communicated with him during the making of the movie, because I can't speak Hindi, and I did ask him how he fared on Eternals, the Marvel movie directed by Chloé Zhao, if he can't understand English, and I had to ask him through Karan and he said, I don't know what Chloé was saying to me, he would just literally do whatever he felt like. She would come up, deliver direction, and then, he would just give another take based on whatever he felt like doing. And, he's the funniest, I don't know if you've seen Eternals, but he's like the funniest part of that movie. He is so good in that movie, and that man is just operating on his own.
KARAN: When we first met him, he didn't audition or anything, we offered it to him, and then we first met him during prep, we didn't realize how much he was speaking in Hindi and not as much in English, and he only wanted to speak in Hindi. Then, I think we had a moment where we're like, is he going to be able to do these scenes, like there was just this feeling, and then every scene, right on the first take, he was perfect, and he understood the tone. He understood like he modulated the performance, and it wasn't Bollywood, it was more for Hollywood, so even though something's going on in there, he's just a genius, because you're just like, he understood the tone of the movie at every point, even though it seemed like he only wanted to talk in Hindi, but all his lines were perfect.
ROSHAN: How do you make it through a Marvel shoot without understanding English, I mean that man is next level, he is next level.
ROHAN: Karan, you get to have your big SRK moment in this movie when you recreate one of his most iconic scenes - what was it like filming that sequence? Did it feel a little surreal?
KARAN: It was really cool. Like anything in film, it's such a collaborative effort, so I think so much of what's working in that is I have a wig, which they found, that was great, very funny wig. And then, the costume designer found the original jacket that Shah Rukh had worn in the movie, it's a vintage Harley Davidson jacket, and she found it. So, all that kind of helps you get into the mode. And then, the thing I really wanted to do in that sequence was I love bad acting and over acting like telenovelas and things like that and, when I was rewatching the clips from the movie we were recreating, in a Hollywood movie, to make those expressions of just like, kind of like closing your eyes and shivering and shaking and stuff. It felt so funny to me. So, I was like, oh, this is like a great kind of moment to do all that. So, I loved it. We shot that in a very rushed way, I think in one or two takes per set up.
ROSHAN: We had 45 minutes to shoot that whole video, yeah.
KARAN: I just remember I could have done that for hours, because I was making them all laugh and I was hamming it all up. And also, Bollywood has changed, obviously a lot too. But back then, the acting was even more intense and not the same as it is in Hollywood, and I love that exaggerated style and all of that. So, it was really fun.
ROHAN: What was it like working with Jonathan Groff and casting him as Jay?
ROSHAN: He was our first choice. He's just a formidable actor. We didn't prepare him in any way for how to act Indian. Jonathan, we just were obsessed with, we didn’t prepare him in any way to pretend to be Indian, and then, he arrived on set and sang that song in the way that he sings it in the movie, without any discussion beforehand, and it was just a very striking performance. He is incredible. He's very intuitive, and he can just act. He can do drama, and he can do comedy. Comedy is the hardest thing, obviously, to do, and people don't think of Jonathan as a comedic actor, but he is really good at it.
Wait, are you wearing a Deadpool shirt?
ROHAN: Yes, I am! Had suit up for Dopinder!
ROSHAN: The first time I ever saw Karan, I saw Karan on screen before I met him, and I saw the first Deadpool, and I saw him on screen. And I walked out of the theater with all my Indian male friends from medical school, and I said that actor, whoever he is, is racist because he is a cab driver with a thick Indian accent that he's clearly affecting. He's setting us back as people. And then, I later learned that Karan is from India. That is not a fake accent. That is actually his real accent. And I had to very quickly walk it all back, because the same friends I had told that he was racist, I later introduced them to him. *laughs*
Watch A Nice Indian Boy only in theaters in the following cities:
Naveen Gavaskar is a self-effacing, soft-spoken doctor with a boisterous mother, seemingly perfect sister and quiet father. The Gavaskars are outwardly accepting of Naveen’s sexuality but have never had to confront it in practice.
While at temple, Naveen meets Jay Kurundkar, a white man adopted by two Indian parents. Naveen is slowly charmed and softened by Jay’s sincerity and confidence. They fall in love—even as Naveen avoids telling his family about Jay.
One afternoon, they run into Naveen’s brother-in-law and an embarrassed Naveen describes Jay as a “friend”. The encounter precipitates a discussion in which Naveen admits that he, like Jay, dreams of having a big Indian wedding. Now, Jay, who has no family of his own, must meet the Gavaskars –– Naveen’s family. This causes a collision between the family, Jay—who has his own insecurities—and Naveen, caught between who he is with his family and who he is outside of it.
After comic misunderstandings, frank fights, and emotional revelations, the family falls apart, questioning everything. Naveen and Jay’s hard-won love makes each of the Gavaskars face the reality of their own relationships. And through a sweetly woven reconciliation, they come together again to plan Naveen & Jay’s own big, Indian wedding.