I was a Bollywood stuntwoman

Working as an extra in the world's biggest film industry has become a tourist attraction. No wonder -- it allowed a nobody like me to instantly rub shoulders with a star who makes millions of Indian women swoon.

By Cara Anna

Feb 10, 2005 | I was a Bollywood stuntwoman. I like saying that. If I lived in a place where people threw cocktail parties, rather than in the cow tundra of upstate New York, that's the first thing I'd say while reaching for a canapé.

The pinnacle of my short but glorious career came a few weeks ago, when the Indian epic "Kisna" opened at theaters around the world, including in the U.S. It was Bollywood's biggest release so far this year, by India's showiest director, Subhash Ghai, and marked a significant step in international relations: The lead actress isn't local, but British and blond. I was her stunt double. On holiday in India, and with no acting experience, I found that the fastest road to filmdom may begin in Mumbai.

Yes, aspiring starlets. Get there now, before the small but savvy number of booby Russian and Bolivian girls, already clutching portfolios, takes over. The average Indian film is a challenge of taste -- "Our biggest problem today is that 90 percent of the films are flopping," Ghai has said -- but it's a mistake to ignore the colorful job market behind them. The Mumbai film industry makes more movies a year than anyone in the world, and the need for non-Indians is growing, especially now: As Bollywood producers see larger chunks of their box office from overseas, they're making more films with foreign faces.

It's not the smoothest transition. Ghai told an Indian film weekly that, for his "Kisna" heroine, "I needed a country girl with an angelic face, endearing to the Indian masses despite being a white girl." (He neatly solved some problems by making a second, shorter, English version: "The Warrior Poet," releasing later, features a kiss between the Indian hero and the British heroine that, for cultural reasons, might not play well at home.)

Big-budget epics like "Kisna" aside, the non-Indian exotic does play in India, as a gimmick. To put it superficially, as Bollywood can do so well, some moviemakers are very, very open to displaying swiveling young blondes. So listen carefully, celluloid wannabes, as I tell you how I broke in, and take heart: I'm neither booby nor particularly beautiful, but there I was, swinging with the stars.

Step 1: Arrival
Sharky, tight-jeaned boys stand sweating on street corners in the backpacker district of South Mumbai. They wait patiently, cellphones buzzing in hip pockets, skimming over the dirty and the clearly stoned, looking for the freshest faces, often so fresh that they're just now tumbling out of taxis, fat Lonely Planet guidebooks in hand.

Action. The boys slide over and make the pitch. Want to be in a film? Just get in this car. There's little time to ask questions or negotiate prices, and that's how the casting agents like it. It's surprising how many tourists suddenly agree to follow a stranger. "My friends did it," they say. Or simply, "Oh, what the hell."

Whatever happens next, it's your fault if you didn't press for details. That "film" might be a commercial for ab enhancers, or a soap opera in which you spend eight hours in a damp leisure suit, for about $10 a day.

What unfolds daily, especially now, at the height of the shooting season, is an odd scene where Westerners resemble certain Mexican laborers - picked up from street corners, without the proper work papers, by shady middlemen who keep a generous dose of a long day's pay for themselves. And yet, being a Bollywood extra is a growing tourist attraction. For most travelers it's a one-time playground, a future freak story to tell over beer. For others, it's the entry to a possible job.

Already, young foreigners -- from film-school graduates to short-skirted women waiting in the lobbies of high-class hotels -- are nibbling at Mumbai's entertainment industry. I met a man from New York who, knowing nothing about Bollywood, became a bodyguard for one of India's biggest actors. He worked his new connections, appearing in runway shows, and made the Mumbai tabloids as the rumored new lover of a dimpled starlet.

Knowing a bit about Indian films, I didn't wait for chance. I worked the places where casting agents hovered, around the Salvation Army Hostel and a restaurant called Leopold's. I walked up to the boys, got their cell numbers, wiggled my copy of the Indian film magazine Stardust suggestively and started work the next day.

Next Page: Being foreign and assumed ignorant, I was harmless

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