If you have seen the trailer of Rahul Sankrityan’s Ranabaali, there’s a character who must have made an impression on you right when he shoved a child alive into a cauldron. That’s Mumbai-based British-born actor Benedict Garrett playing a character that he describes as cruel and nasty. The film explores how a famine caused by colonial rule in 19th-century India led to starvation in Andhra Pradesh. Excerpts.
Talking to Hindustan Times, the actor explains his experience on a Tollywood film set, working with Vijay Deverakonda after missing a chance earlier, and more.
Explaining what he means, Benedict says that his time in India since 2022 has taught him more about Colonial rule than what most Britishers are taught at school. Because of the things my character had to do; it was quite traumatic,” he adds, but there was one time I almost started crying. Benedict recalls how he was supposed to star in a film with Deverakonda even before Pawan Kalyan’s Hari Hara Veera Mallu, his first Telugu film. But it fell through. But I must say, this character is particularly nasty. I quite liked the challenge of that and also feel there’s a responsibility on my part as well. “I feel a sense of responsibility to India and the film industry to help portray some of her stories from her own perspective. So, I don’t mind playing these roles. “But, well, unfortunately, it was a violent time. The British did do some despicable and nasty things. So, what’s worse, the violence in the film, or the violence of reality?” he questions. And this was the first time he was on a Telugu film set, where he was expected to repeat the lines. “It was all fine in the end. But thankfully, in Ranabaali, all my lines are in English. English is a standard language on a Hindi film set, it’s not in Telugu. The language is just more colourful, more poetic, like Italian. So there have been times when I have been, sorry, can you just explain that again?”
“Here’s another chance to work with him again, as well as actors like Rashmika,” he says of Ranabaali , adding, “I often play quite cruel, nasty characters from pre-Independence times. The actor says Ranabaali explores the man-made famine in which grain was exported from India even as locals starved. “Some people were saying, oh that’s unnecessary, or that’s a bit violent,” he says of the visuals in the trailer. The actor says that most of the time, his characters in Indian films speak English.
