If you’ve seen Byomkesh Bakshi, Parmanu, The Family Man, Bombay Begums, Angrezi Medium, RRR, Rocket Boys, it’s hard not to witness the acting brilliance of Mark Bennington, an American-turned-desi actor who has so much more to offer than what meets the eye. Starring in Homi Adajania’s crime saga series Saas, Bahu Aur Begum, Mark unbashedly proved that he is not another ‘token white guy’.
Before setting foot in the industry as an actor, Mark Bennington had extensively pursued photography. His book ‘Living The Dream: The Life Of The Bollywood Actor’ was a rage since it captured a more personal and exclusive sides of Bollywood stars. On top of that, during his days in America, Mark Bennington was part of Star Trek: Voyager, Charmed, NYPD Blue and others. On top of that,
Mark played over 400 shows and recorded 3 albums with the legendary LA roots/rock band ’50cent Haircut’, in which he served as a drummer.
In an exclusive interview with News18 Showsha, Mark Bennington talked about his character of Donze from Saas, Bahu Aur Flamingo, his journey into the Bollywood industry and much more. Here are a few excerpts from the interview:
Mark Bennington Delves Deep Into The Psyche And Prep For Saas, Bahu Aur Flamingo
My audition scene was the drug experience scene and I went for it. I tell you what was challenging. First of all, the French accent. I pride myself for being pretty good at accents and I’ve done a lot of accents in my career even in my LA days. So I really worked on it. I picked somebody whose French accent really fit the bill. He kept saying that Donze is an international man of the world who is very creative. The way I work now, I feel like I work best in a room by myself. Just working it out, talking in the accents, running lines and improvising lines, talking to the air, characters that I have fantasies about. I used to read to my oldest daughter in French accent via a lion puppet and she would say, ‘Papa stop the accent’. So the big hurdle initially was the accent. But eventually, you start feeling your character and it feels like ‘this guy is fun loving’. There is something lively to him. And it was never discussed with Homi or anyone really. But now that I see the show, I am like ‘Wow this is actually such a beautiful contrast’. Because he got such warmth and depth. There was something so genuine and loving about him which we see with Savvi(Dimple Kapadia’s character). And what a great contrast for her character. It was fun to work on because Homi is so receptive and open. There’s such a fun, positive, collaborative vibe. He’s always open to suggestions. It was a great working environment.
Mark Bennington Talks About Bombay Begums And How Donze Was More Than A ‘Token White Guy’
In my opinion, my character had a lot of potential but it also seemed to be in some ways very heavy-handed in a particular statement that it wanted to make.
That got a little bit claustrophobic or something. It didn’t let the stories or the characters really
come to life and breathe in a realist way. You know, it’s always good for me working on things that are not stereotypical. I work in a very expected genre. It’s the token white guy usually. Everyone expects a particular something and I am always trying to bring something, some dimensions to whatever role I am working on. I am always trying to bring something humane to it even if it’s just the token white guy. But with that one, I felt like this is something different. This is a love interest that I have not done before and it seemed like there was some potential for me in Season 2. But Donze feels like the first emotional character that hasn’t really been played by a foreigner and that too with so much of emotional pull. Bombay Begums didn’t. But this has a deep, emotional pull and the audience could feel it. It’s like the feedback I am getting is so cool because it is totally not a typical foreigner role. I really feel blessed that I was able to do it.
Mark Bennington Traces His Steps Back To Where It All Started
It all started when I saw John Travolta and Saturday Night Fever when I was a kid. And I said, I want to do that. And I didn’t even know what that meant. I didn’t even know If I wanted to be a dancer in New York or something else. But then eventually I figured out I wanted to act. I used to do school plays and later in life, I was heavy into drumming and I was in a band. I was presented with the question what do I want to do for money? I thought I would rather do acting for money than music. I went to New York, I got into an acting program there and that really started my journey of acting. I did lots and lots of theatre. I did regional stuff in France and then I got into TV and that took a good chunk of 10 years of my life.
Mark Bennington Gets Candid About Taking A Halt From Acting
One fine day, I was scratching my head. In every acting career, there are ebbs and flows and especially in LA. Here I am one among the handful of guys that look like me but in LA, there are 70,000 guys that look like me in every audition. So there were lots of rejections and it was one of those periods where I was working a lot and not working a lot. During one of those down phases, I picked up my grandfather’s camera. He had been an amateur photographer. That was it. I instantly thought maybe I should do this while I am waiting for another job. And that just completely took over my life for the next 12-13 years. Not only was I not acting, I had no interest in acting at all. I wouldn’t go to theatres. I would look at movies and wouldn’t gloss over the acting bit. It was very strange because I always thought I wanted to be an actor.
Mark Bennington Reveals How He Came To India
I was afraid for my life. I didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t been to the other side of the world. There were parts of me that was very scary and then I had this underlying calm feeling that felt like going home. And I
know it sounds quite cheesy but there was something real about that. When I came here, I had no ambitions of doing a book. I just wanted to see a different part of the world and go on a trip. I came to Mumbai and I didn’t know anyone. I had my camera and I thought maybe I can meet some actors and maybe I can do a project around actors in Mumbai. Then I met Guneet Monga and she introduced me to some actors and that’s how it started.
How Did Mark Bennington Get The Bug Of Acting Back?
My friend was working with Dibakar Banerjee on Byomkesh Bakshi. He asked me if I would be in India the next month. I told him I was getting married. He was like ‘Can you audition for this great role?’. I told him ‘Dude I don’t want to act anymore. Period!” He pleaded me and I reluctantly agreed to it. And ofcourse, I got the role. I think the more you don’t care about something, it’s most likely you’ll get it. Maybe the universe works like that. But I got that and it was really difficult. It had a lot of Hindi and I didn’t speak any Hindi at the time. I didn’t feel like I was doing justice acting wise at all. I was just hanging on by the edge of the cliff by my fingers trying to get the sounds. That was not a great creative experience. Even for Parmanu, I kept blowing off for the audition requests. I didn’t really care. But next thing you know, I was in Rajasthan and I was shooting for it. Post 2017, I was here for an extended period of time and I started getting a lot of audition calls. I don’t know how. It’s always some sort of alignment of time where she had just started writing her dissertation, I was getting fed up with the photography. Maybe I was looking for something different so I jumped off from that boat and got on to another boat which was passing at the right time. The day I got off the plane, I went and read for Kesari which I got. I read for a TV show which I also got. The acting was always there because it was former true love of my life. But at the same time, I used to overanalyze roles, dialogues, and projects. Now, I was approaching all of it in a very practical, mature and more intuitive way. I was trusting my instincts. But going back in time, the first few projects that I did, it felt like I was doing it for the money and just hoping for the best. And then, after a few projects in, I started feeling like I was getting the acting bug again. Then I started feeling like I want to do a good job. And I want the project to be good. It was about putting the best foot forward. Everything I am doing now, I am much more invested. And I feel like some of the projects that are coming my way are manifestations of me getting more invested in it.
Mark Bennington Reflects Upon How Foreigners Are Treated In The Entertainment Industry
There are guys like myself who really try to avoid small roles. I’ve done a few of them but I really try to avoid them from the beginning. Also because, I could do photography, I could do other things other than being stuck here trying to take anything that was coming my way. Also, there was a part that was sincerely reluctant to get back into acting and If I was gonna get back into acting, I wanted to do good roles. Roles that had voice in the main narrative of a particular project.Sometimes that happens and sometimes it doesn’t. That’s okay. It’s part of it. So for the most part, everybody is treated well. The only people that are not treated so well are extras sometimes. That’s an unfortunate circumstance of the work environment. It’s true in Hollywood as well. It’s universal. Sometimes they are treated like cattle. I remember sometimes back, something happened on the sets where the director was shouting at this whole group of Russian extras and they just got up and they started walking out. A part of me was like ‘Good for them. They don’t deserve to be yelled at like that’. They are sitting here 12 hours a day in the heat and they’ve only eaten once. I am like ‘don’t yell at them’.
Mark Bennington Plays The ‘Bad Guy’ In His Next With NKR
I feel like there are opportunities down South. I just finished this film Devil. I play the bad guy. It has NTR Jr’s older brother Nandamuri Kalyan Ram. And that was a great experience and a whole lot of fun too. It was my first time playing the main villian and being a really bad guy. Again, I was trying to bring something humane to the guy and not just make him ‘one trick Pony’. They kept wanting my character to be really angry in every scene and I was like ‘but he was really angry in the last scene. We have to play with it. There’s gotta be more layers to it. I want this to be a good film. You don’t want a guy who is just shouting and shouting’. That was a tug-o-war that I was having with them but all in a very positive way. Thinking about how we can make this better, how we can bring some heart into it even if he’s a bad guy. Because when you do that, that’s what connects the audience. It’s not just a caricature of this mean guy. It’s boring.
Mark Bennington Talks About Heeramandi
Shooting Heeramandi has been different from anything I’ve ever done in terms of meticulousness of it. Of all the days I’ve shot, a page and a half takes 12 hours. It’s so much attention to consistency and detail. You gotta be a pretty good actor. You should have some chops to stick around on a thing like that. Otherwise, you won’t be able to pull it off. Everyone in that project is a really good actor because you have to do it so many times over and over and over again with the same zeal. It’s like doing theatre. You gotta bring it out every single time because you don’t know if that’s gonna be the take. It’s been a great experience and I believe every experience is different. There are some that are horrendous, some that you have to get through it, others that are stimulating and others that are even if you may not think much of it at the time but you feel like years later ‘Wow! Man, I really learned a lot from that’. So I feel like pros and cons always end up being pros.