It was a little before
lunch time when we hooked up over Skype for the interview. Ravin, enjoying his
one day off from his busy schedule greeted me with a welcoming smile from his small
office, wearing a stonewashed denim shirt and sporting a greying beard.
It was an absolutely
wonderful interview, where I learnt a lot more about the man who twelve years
ago played Neil in Torchwood’s Greeks
Bearing Gifts episode.
Our interview began with a
look through Ravin's CV on his agent’s website, but although IMDB had listed
the episode and programme in question, his CV had no mention of Torchwood at
all. After a shocked response from Ravin, it was soon explained.
Ravin: Torchwood was some ten or twelve years
now so it may be as my credits move up as you add a credit it might have
dropped off the edge.
What
was your first experience of acting that inspired you to become an actor?
Ravin: My first experience was obviously the
school Nativity, where for some reason I was cast as one of the Three Wise Men,
you know, the wise man who was the darker
Wise Man. (laughs). I went to a Church of England school so that was really the
first, but I never really took it that seriously. I took part in a lot of
community shows and then I got into Amateur Dramatics at a Youth Theatre, there
was a theatre locally. So, youth theatre and then I did Hampshire County Youth
Theatre and then The National Youth Theatre. I think I sort of knew from a very
early age that I was going to be an actor partly because I didn't like
academics at the time. (laughs). I didn't like the option of having to study
hard and acting at that time seemed a bit of a get out clause although the discovery thereafter there is far from
that. I get young actors who want some advice and even my son who wants to do
GCSE drama, my advice is really clearly - don't think that it really is a get
out clause, because the actual amount of writing and essays and critiques that
you have to do is far more than you get in English literature.
What
was your first acting role - after the Nativity?
Ravin: We had a little Diwali review show in
our community and as I grew older I ended up almost taking charge of that. So,
by the time I was 16 my friend and I, we had a comedy act, which was trial and
error and then I started at Youth Theatre around the same age, at 16 and we did
Peter Terson's Zigger Zagger. It was
written specifically for the National Youth Theatre in the late 70s early 80s, Zigger Zagger was a drama about racism
in football communities and all those things that we talk about now. It was a
little bit ahead of its time.
I played a comic bus
conductor. I remember having to sing a song Camptown
Ladies sing this song, doodah. It was thirty years ago so it was
highlighting the issues of racism and integration. I think that was the sort of
thing Peter Terson's Zigger Zagger
was all about, a very sort of seminal moment in theatre history.
You
voiced the character Mr Mahajan in Torchwood audio - Golden Age, but I had a feeling that you had voiced another
character in audio for this series, but I can't find it in your credit
listings.
Ravin: When I did the first series of
Torchwood at the time I didn't know how big this was going to be, nobody knew
really, just how big this thing would get. Then BBC Bristol or BBC Cardiff
wrote the radio dramas with the same cast members, so that was a two part
drama. So, I remember doing that probably a year after I filmed Torchwood. I
think I maybe did another audio for Torchwood about 4 years after that but
again, it's probably not on my CV now. (Ravin explains about the credits added,
loses one from below, in the same way as his Torchwood episode 12 years ago).
In
the actual Torchwood episode, Greeks
Bearing Gifts, how hard did Naoko actually hit you?
Ravin: (laughs) I was battered - I could say
that! No, it's stage fighting, isn't it? From what I remember it was a foam -
you know the foam that you insulate pipes with - so it was made with a similar
sort of material - some sort of foam. So when she hit, she arrests the hit
right at the point of actually striking me but it looks worse and it's the
sound effect that... and I was thinking, and she did actually batter me.
Oh, that's right, I
remember, she battered the back of my head. It was like having a good slap. So,
the reaction was real on that take. Naoko was meant to hit it and stop it at
that point so you don't actually touch but because it's flexible material it
obviously slapped me. And I remember thinking 'Oh god.’ That wasn't hard, it
didn't hurt me. It properly, actually happened.
It was a real shock.
So,
when you know you're about to be whacked on the back of the head, in that
particular scene, you've got to show that you're not waiting for that moment,
how did you prepare for that?
Ravin: With any script, even though you've
read from A to B from the beginning to the end, you have to approach the lines
as if you don't know when the next line is coming. Acting and Reacting. The
truth of any situation is like I'm speaking to you now is I have no idea what
you're about to say. I can predict by intellect, so as an actor, I know what
you might think but I have to put that out of my mind because the way you react
to me may be different. So, I had to react accordingly to how you said the
line.
So that moment of being
struck hadn't even crossed my mind as we were going through that scene, and
saying the line, even though we all know it's going to happen, you block - you
try to put that out of your mind, so that it's a very natural reaction.
Otherwise you'll be saying the lines (Ravin demonstrates as a character bracing
himself, eyes wide open). As an actor you have to find a way of detaching
yourself from the reality of what's about to happen.
Have
you always had a passion for acting?
Ravin: Yeah. I had a passion for God and I had
a passion for acting. I met a Maasai at the age of 16 and he read my palm and
he said to me, 'You're a prince amongst
men' I said, Oh really, what does that mean? He said, 'Well you're going to struggle with God' because I was going to
join the priesthood. He said 'You'll
struggle with that but I can see this artistic creation within you' and I
think that sort of confirmed it, of course I took it all with a pinch of salt.
It was really interesting how he saw the two things, having not met me, having
not learnt anything about me how he saw the two very strong pulls in my life.
Being a priest is
something that I take my hat off to anyone who can do - but it wasn't for me
especially when I discovered the opposite sex. (laughs)
Had
you seen Torchwood before you played the role of Neil?
Ravin: No, I think I was the first series, wasn’t
I? (I nod) So, no. And Doctor Who was a distant memory for me because at that
time Doctor Who hadn't gone through its reformation like it has now, which is phenomenal.
And my memories of Doctor Who was Tom Baker, just about catching some repeats
of Jon Pertwee but Tom Baker was my Doctor.
When I went up for this
casting of Torchwood, I didn't know about it. I was told it's like Doctor Who,
my agent of 20 years told me. She told me it's an off shoot of Doctor Who, but
I didn't know the character of Torchwood - John Barrowman, I hadn't seen the
episode. This was prior to major internet Googling 13 years ago, it's amazing
to think that the whole internet has really exploded over 10 years, and prior
to that you couldn’t really research much or watch back episodes on BBC iPlayer
or none of that.
You know, actors now, if
you're put up for a job the first thing I would do is Google it, have a look at
the style, have a look what it's about, who was in it, who was the director.
It's very easy with the tools you have available to you as an actor now is far
different to what you had eight years ago.
Ten years ago, there was
no such thing as a blog or a vlog, so to be a writer, to tell someone about
your passion meant you had to be a journalist. You had to arrange advertising
space in publications, or to write for a publication. I know there were
fanzines of Doctor Who many years ago, I'm not sure if that still exists, a
printed fanzine, so the world is changing.
What
came first, theatre or television?
Ravin: Theatre, absolutely theatre. I actually
did a casting when I was 13 years old for a TV show, a children's television
show and it was my first real experience of professional casting and it was
heart-breaking so I didn't really enter into that ever again for many years.
So, then I did the Youth Theatre and then the A Levels and theatre studies and
all that till always being on the stage. So, from the age of about 15 right the
way through till 20 I was doing Amateur Dramatics and then I did a semi-professional
show which was a tour of The Ramayana and that went to Czechoslovakia, just as
the Czech Republic was being formed.
That was in my gap year.
So that was my semi-professional job and then while at drama school in the
first and second year I did a lot of Extra work to pay the bills. So that was
my first experience of television. So as an Extra you don't have to go for
casting, if your look is right you get sent somewhere. But as a result of that
I got my first speaking part while at drama school that was in my third year.
So, in your third year you're discouraged from doing Extra work because you're
now entering the world of being a professional actor and don't want to be seen
as an Extra. At the end of the second year I stopped doing Extra work and then
I was getting Castings for professional TV - Granada, BBC.
I studied up in
Manchester, we still proudly say - the alumni
say, Manchester Polytechnic School of Theatre, rather than Manchester Met -
we're a bit diehard. But you know, it came from good stock of actors from the
past - Julie Walters, Steve Coogan, John Thompson, Matthew Kelly, Kevin Kennedy
ended up on Corrie for god knows how long. So, the first telly auditions
happened way into my semi-professional career, student career and then I
started getting TV castings.
So,
when you were doing your castings, when you started out doing Extra work, were
you kind of pigeonholed into certain roles like your bus conductor, or doctors
or was it just what came up that you applied for - without trying to stereotype
everything.
Ravin: We all have a niche! Look at John
Barrowman - handsome, tall, romantic lead, that's his niche and he plays it
well. You know, quirky. So, everybody has their niche, and I was discovering
what my niche was and the first few years was a discovery for casting directors
who met me. They get to know you over time. I think also casting in those days
was reasonably, and I'll say this word with caution, was reasonably colour
blind. Which meant, I was going for parts that, I as Ravin, it's obvious that I
am Asian, Indian origin, I don't make any attempt to hide it. I didn't
Anglicise my name - I was getting a lot of advice 'You should Anglicise your name, you'll do well.' and actually a
lot of Anglicised Indians did do well, but I didn't want to, I wanted to be
true to my own identity. I think casting in those days as I was going up for
the part of John, a part named Harry, so really the best man was getting the
job so I was up against non Asian actors, White, and we were all in the same
pot of 20 something year old romantic leads or whatever.
I think what happened
around the mid to late 90s especially with the turning of the sort of
resurgence of comedy 'Goodness Gracious
Me' suddenly casting became a little bit narrower. You got all of a sudden,
casting directors, producers, directors thought 'Oh, that's where you belong is it? I see you guys are funny.'
Now that's my cynical head
- I notice that. So, from being cast as a character which is non-descript in
its ethnicity to all of a sudden being cast in a character which is specific in
its ethnicity, now of course that has its advantages as well, because that pool
is smaller.
And as I'm growing up in
the industry I'm seeing the same actors, maybe there was twelve of us before,
now there's maybe six of us and we're all at the same casting and it's all
pretty much all the parts I can ever look at, which some are of my castings
from this year will generally be ethnic specific - Asian male, 40 years old, 50
years old, whatever, but I think right at the beginning, in the first five
years I didn't feel that at all.
So
you've worked behind the camera as well as in front of it?
Ravin: That was a good turning point for me
around ten years ago, I mean, I wanted to understand the industry better from a
wider perspective. Seeing it from the actor’s vision is quite narrow - you
start taking it quite personally when you don’t get the job - and you think,
what did I do wrong? You always blame yourselves.
But actually, when you sit
yourself up at the other end of the table the casting process is horrible
actually, to be on there. You see great actors and you suddenly find that you
have to make choices about the way they look and the way somebody else looks.
Doesn't mean that they're
not good actors they're brilliant actors but they just so haven't matched that
person, so it helps to understand how casting works. Also I wanted to
understand the technicalities of film making and what it is to get shots from
different angles, and what crossing the
line means, and the different things you hear when you're on set. I think
as actors you weren't really taught that. I did a drama school degree but we
only spent one term on television acting and even that was maybe 6 weeks of
term yet the bulk of our work will be on television or film, I believe.
Manchester Poly was very
known for creating theatre actors, really strong theatre actors, and some of
the greats have come from there but I think drama school doesn't really equip you
to be in the television or film industry - it's learning on the job.
So,
because you've worked behind the camera as well, are you more critical of
yourself when you're playing a character in front of the camera?
Ravin: Terribly critical. I hate it. You know,
I get given requests 'Do a self tape'.
(Ravin explains Self Tape
Casting)
So, instead of going along
somewhere and meeting them, just read the scenes. So I'll be sat in front of my
laptop or set up a camera, and normally you go in for a casting and you make
and meet some of them face to face and have an interview, have a chat and then
they say OK let's read. You're done
in 15 minutes and you get two stabs at it, three at most. When you're doing a
self tape, you do it 'Oh I didn't like
that' and you do it, I'm there for 3 hours!!! and I want to get the best
take. I want to be like ‘Oh god come on,
just let go now. Just do it’. (laughs)
So if that's what I’m
doing with a Self Tape, heaven help me when I'm on set. I do get very critical,
self-critical, self-analyse a bit but then all actors do. We're all bloody
insecure!
The acting industry is the
only industry where we take critique. We don't critique our car, now people
review everyone, you can review your hotel, review your restaurant, they'll
write like they're writing like a theatre critique but we're the only industry
where it's acceptable to write and say ‘Ravin,
that was rubbish, do it again.’
‘The actor playing Malvolio
had about as much depth as a pond on a summer's day.’ It's the only industry
where people get away with that level of criticism.
“The
doctor who did my appendix surgery lacked the emotional empathy to connect with
me prior to surgery“ ..
I mean, you're not going
to write about a doctor - they get on with the job. But you as a writer was
doing it this way, you as an actor was doing it that way that's par for the
course, I understand. And it's getting more and more with amateur critiques of
every aspects of your life.
What's
your most memorable role on stage, screen or radio?
Ravin: Good lord that's a great question. (I
knew I'd have one in there somewhere) Oh wow, I could think of so many. My most
memorable role in TV, I'll have to say Torchwood, all right? There's so much. I
haven't got my CV in front of me and I think I might be erring on the forgetful
right now.
Stage - the most memorable. I've done a five
year project with the theatre company called Tara-Arts mapping the diaspora of
the British Asians from India to Africa and Africa to England.
It started as a single
play when we did it about the East African experience, the East African Exodus
of course, it was called Exodus and
actually the process of doing that one show, so much came out of the interviews
that the director made it into a much broader project. So, it lasted five
years. Five years of your life, meeting people, who are revealing their stories
of heartache and pain and you then as an actor finding a way with the writer to
create stories which are tangible for an audience to hear and see. So, people
are opening their hearts and so as far as memory that always stays with me -
some of those memories, some of those stories.
As far as fun, being in
the West End no doubt, in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Bombay Dreams. It was a dream
job, the interesting thing is I did the original casting to play the part, I
didn't get anywhere, I didn't get seen again, because then a Bollywood actor
came and did it, right, so that was great.
Dalip Tahil did it, and he
was great in it, and then, he got cast in Eastenders so he left, mid contract,
I got called up and they said, ‘there's a
part available, do you want to go for it?’ So, I said, yeah why not, so I
did it and I had two or three meetings with them and singing and all the rest
of it and they loved it and they offered it me.
And then I got to know
Dalip on a personal level - He left it in a good place for me to take over and
I got to play 15 - 20 years older than me, at that time I was 35, and it was a
very happy place in my life. It was where a lot of good friendships developed.
A lot of experience of being on stage, being fresh every day for eight shows a
week and in front of 2000 people, for sheer experience, that has to rank at the
top.
Films - I've done some great films I've
enjoyed doing. The most fun I had on a film was The Infidel which was directed by Josh Appignanesi but it had my
hero in it and I was a big fan of the West Wing, my hero Richard Schiff was in
that. Of course, Omid Djalili, Archie Panjabi and the rest of them was in it as
well but to be in the same room as Richard Schiff was a big deal for me.
What's
the toughest role you've ever had?
Ravin: I think every role has its own
challenges. I wouldn't say one role was tougher than another. I know I was
doing this role with Peter Kosminsky - it was one of Kosminsky's first films - No Child of Mine - so that was a tv
movie, so going back to 1997, and it was about child abuse and grooming, and
this was way before we were all talking about it in such a broad manner as we
are in the current climate. So, I think just understanding that subject, what
leads a person to do that - I only had a small part in it. You read the script,
you have to understand the personalities within, so I think that was one of the
tougher roles to understand.
And then again, I worked
with Peter 10 years later on Britz which was about Islamic Terrorism - a
brother and sister. It was two episodes and you see his perspective and you see
her perspective and I played a Police Chief in India, but when you read that
script, it has so many layers, so many reasons why people do what they do. So
being involved in that was, I wouldn't say it was tough but it had its
challenges.
It makes you think, it
really makes you think.
And then there was one
more that I did last year - The Boy with
the Topknot. Sathnam Sanghera, he was the Guardian journalist who wrote the
biography of his family. Now my mother suffered from mental illness, and mental
illness is something we're only just starting to get to grips with. We've got
Prince Harry talking about it, people are starting to talk about it in the
public view, to take away the shame of that.
Yesterday I talked to one
friend of mine whose son is going through some major psychosis. Now my mother
had all that in the 70s - and in the 70s all they knew about was to give them a
frontal lobotomy and give them loads of drugs - that was psychiatric health
care in the world at the time. But psychiatry has come a long way and I think
for me to do that and play the psychiatrist in that film was actually an honour
and it was my story. I could relate to that story of an Asian immigrant in the
70s/80s growing up with a parent with a mental illness, so yeah it was a great
move for the Beeb to take that on.
It's available to view on
iPlayer, it was on BBC2. It was a great film. Sacha Dhawan plays the lead. It's
got a lovely fluffy ending. You have to do that I suppose - that's not the real
ending. But all for the cause of television - the romance has to be there.
When
you're working on radio, how different is it to portray your character when you
have only your voice to project a scene?
Ravin: Radio is one of the harder forms of
acting. You rely on the director and producer to give you what they're hearing.
You'll see them sitting in the box as your acting. They've got their eyes
closed so they're visualising what they can hear, which is great and I love to
see that.
I did a radio soap for 4
years at Birmingham Pebble Mill, or what was Pebble Mill but now is called the
Mail Box. It was called Silver Street.
I played a character called Jai - Uncle Jai, he was the bad boy - he was always
ripping off his Mum, a bit dodgy, a bit like the Nick Cotton in Eastenders. But a great character to get
into.
Now how do you play
without him being smarmy. you can sound all sorts of things. So, I had to rely
on, when I'm rehearsing the lines, was to do the same thing, close my eyes and
visualise what I think the character is doing.
When
you're not working, or taking a break between shows or programmes, how do you
relax?
Ravin: I have such little time. I have my
family. My father lives with me, he has dementia. I have a young boy but I am
also the UK trustee of a charity - co-chairman of the charity based out in
India which helps to educate and empower slum girls. So, we have 3 schools, a
hospital and currently we're looking after 1500 girls and their families and
actually I've been involved in the charity for about 10 years and so I've seen
a lot of these girls grow up and we got to the point where their primary
education, that if we stopped there they're going to end up married, at eleven,
what do we do, how do we stop these child marriages?
Get them into secondary
schools. So, we built the secondary's, and then actually, we want them to
achieve more than one GCSE level - it’s called something else in India, Level 8
Standard, or 9 Standard, so we started an intercollege. Anyway, I'd seen these
girls grow up and then we got them to the point of graduating at our schools at
eighteen, what are they going to do? OK, some of them will go home, maybe end
up married but how can we increase their education beyond that. So, we then
sponsor them through University and last year our first batch of university
graduates came to fruition. It was one of the proudest moments for us as a
charity as we never envisaged that. Could it be possible? Anything is possible.
We launched an ambassador
scheme. We have sponsors in the UK and £1 a day and we compete with other
charities who offer £2 a month. That's fine - you can feed someone for a month
- but what we're doing is not just one feeding -
it's 3 meals a day, it's medical care, it's education, it's all the books and
then what we learnt is that the girls were going home and going ‘Papa! Papa, we're hungry’ and he'll
slap them and say 'How dare you' and
she'd say 'Well why did you slap me
father?' and he'd say 'You've eaten
today, twice, we haven't eaten in four days.'
So, we realised that's a
problem so there was a holistic approach, so we do this thing of rationing - we give the family enough rations to last them
a month then at least they get one square meal a day. So, you can feed one but
it's important to look after them surrounding also ... so it's about creating
that sense of belonging and creating that sense of empowerment for the girls
and their families. These girls graduating from university and all of a sudden
fathers and mothers have changed their attitudes. 'Marriage? No, no forget marriage - no, no work that's good. You're a
somebody. You belong.' It was a great end of achievement.
So, £1 a day is all it costs.
Are
you still filming the Sept Nains et Moi?
Ravin: We filmed that last summer and that was
Series 2, I wasn't in Series 1. So again, it's amazing how fate turns and an
opportunity creates. Actually, you asked me something memorable - that is so
amazing. There I was living in Paris, near Montmatre, filming 14 episodes of a
wonderful teenage TV series. It's on Netflix right now - Series 1. Series 2
will come out in April or May and according to that we'll know if we get a Series
3.
I had a great time doing
it. Made great friends. The interesting thing about the French, and the
different thing about the French and the British culturally, I hate to say it
but I think they were far more advanced than we were, in the way that the cast
and the crew integrate and interact with each other and interact with their actors.
You know, lunch is an
ensemble, everybody had lunch together. You had the cook and chefs come up and
take your orders - really? - here you go to a little bus and say 'can I have some more please sir?' and
walk along. You might sit along the left and the crew sit along over there, the
Extras will sit upstairs but here it was a feeling of equality.
Liberté,
égalité, fraternité -
meaning freedom, equality and fraternity.
It's interesting that they
put that into their constitution. It's fairness and equality it's a big thing I
think. and there was no sense of hierarchy. I was working with four different
directors and the executive producers and you know, they were on speed dial if
I needed to talk to them. It's very rare you get that.
Having said that, I had a
wonderful experience just recently, filming here in the UK and for the first
time in 25 years, the producer, and I don't want to embarrass him because he
might read this one day, but amazing, he came up me and the other guest cast,
and said, 'Thank you for coming on and I
really appreciate your time.' Very rarely does a producer do that and this
made me feel a part of the family of a show, or a film that's going on, with
people that have been there a month prior to me. I didn't feel like an outsider,
which sometimes when you go in as a guest or a supporting lead you feel like a
bit of an outsider.
Have
you ever contemplated playing in a horror film, playing a zombie or something?
Ravin: I'd love to. Bring it on. I did a
horror last year, it was a pre-pilot. It was for Channel 4, it was called True
Horror, or something. It hasn't made it to screen yet, so think they're still
pitching it in the television market place. I'll probably see it in Cannes when
I go again. but yeah, that was a horror, it was great.
Thank
you so much for the interview
Ravin: My pleasure.
This is the short
documentary by Emmy award winner Robyn Symmons
The Web series Ravin
co-produced featuring Marie Avgeropoulos
All permissions for use of
the photos for the cover art and for much of the interview were kindly given by Ravin J
Ganatra
