British actor Benedict Garrett has spent the past four-and-a-half years in Indian cinema, sharing frames with some of the biggest names in the country. The twist: he often does not know how big those names are, and he likes it that way.
Over that time, Garrett has worked with Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Yash, Pawan Kalyan, Vijay Deverakonda and Vijay Sethupathi. He says he has been lucky to learn from interesting performers, not just famous ones.
The ‘king of Bollywood’ he did not recognise
Garrett moved to Mumbai in 2022. In his first year, he shot a Dabur Lal ad with Amitabh Bachchan. His agent tried to explain the scale of the moment. As Garrett recalls in an interview with Hindustan Times, he was told Bachchan was ‘like the king of Bollywood.’ His reaction was simple: ‘Oh, okay, I didn’t know.’
The gap was not indifference. He had started watching a little Indian cinema before moving, but it was not part of his upbringing, so the weight of Bachchan’s stardom had not registered.
Why he stays out of the loop
Garrett’s rule is to avoid deep research on his co-stars’ fame, no matter who he is acting with. His logic: if he does not know the aura, he cannot show up like a fanboy. He told Hindustan Times he aims to be ‘a co-worker with anybody’ and not let stardom get in the way.
Still, some things are hard to ignore. On sets with Salman Khan and Pawan Kalyan, he found the security detail distracting. Bodyguards with machine guns were not exactly a normal part of his workday. ‘It can be a little bit distracting sometimes,’ he said.
A growing Indian film slate
Garrett has already appeared in or is attached to a string of high-profile projects:
- Baby John
- Jawan
- Toxic
- Hari Hara Veera Mallu
His next release, Ranabaali, hits screens on 16 October. He also has the Marathi sports drama Khashaba, Prashanth Neel’s Telugu film Dragon with Jr NTR, and an independent Hindi legal drama shot in Australia.
For celebrity watchers, Garrett’s approach is a useful reminder that not every big name needs to be treated as a myth before the camera rolls. Sometimes professionalism is simply choosing not to be starstruck.
Source: Hindustan Times
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