'Sharing my name on credit roll with Meryl Streep was a dream come true': Extrapolations actor Adarsh Gourav

It wouldn't be completely wrong to call Adarsh Gourav, 'the white tiger' of the Indian film industry. It was in 2021 when the young talent from India gained a significant amount of recognition when he featured in Priyanka Chopra Jonas' film The White Tiger, after which he received a BAFTA nomination. A few months later, a top agency from Hollywood enrolled him as their talent. Comes 2023, and Gourav gets an entire screen space in one of the episodes of Extrapolations, a series that introduces a near future where the chaotic effects of climate change have become embedded into our everyday lives. The young Indian talent, who plays a character named Gaurav, becomes part of a dystopian future, where he occasionally inhales oxygen like one takes smoke breaks and tea breaks outside offices in India. Every story in the series is different, but the fight for the future remains universal.

Do you think Extrapolations will have a strong impact?

I hope so, I certainly hope so because it is a very important film to be made. It's an important topic, an important discussion, and I feel like doing it through film, doing it through the people who are some of the biggest actors in the world is the best way to do it. So yeah I hope it has a very positive impact.

How did you manage to get the role?

So basically, my team that takes care of my project in the US, the agency that I'm with, shared a copy of that episode and I found it extremely well-written. It was by Scott Burns who is the showrunner. And he is a huge director and producer, and he has already made a film about something similar, he has made Contagion. At that point in time I actually didn't even know about the other cast members, so yeah I just read the story and I was told that Richie Mehta is going to direct it and I was like 'let's do this'.

So the episode you are in, shows you paying and inhaling oxygen like people take cigarette breaks.

Yeah, I think it is going to be a reality soon. That's not very far from us considering the way air pollution has increased. I remember shooting for The White Tiger in Delhi, we were shooting in 900 AQI, that was because of the crop burning which happens in winter. But in Bombay also I have felt it. It's representational of what is happening right now, and there are already oxygen tanks available like that. Like I pay and inhale oxygen in the show, they have clinics like that in Delhi and even in Bombay where you have to pay money to breathe 100 per cent oxygen. So, it is something that will inevitably become part of our future. And it's funny, right? It's almost like taking oxygen when we take a tea break in India. You have to in the near future pay money to breathe oxygen for 10 minutes and 15 minutes.

Do you really see a future like that for Mumbai like it was represented in the series?

If we don't wake up and take concrete steps, it might not be a distant reality. It is a potential reality. It has to be at the ground level, you, me and people like us discussing it is good. It needs to be cost-effective too. We told it in a way where a man on a street can also be part of it. The increase in air pollution is crazy. Years ago, I didn't even hear about things like air purifiers and now I have one myself. Air pollution is something you can see go up year by year around you.

Would you call Extrapolations your dream project?

I was very excited about it, first of all, because it is the closest to science fiction that I have ever done, and I have always been a fan of sci-fi movies. It is a great story because it speaks about the relationship of two men who come together for a mission but that is only the surface. There is something much deeper in the screenplay. It's a very cleverly written and personal story. I consider myself to be very fortunate. So the person I am playing his name is Gourav, and he goes through a lot in his life. It was very important for me to understand the sense of loss.

Has life drastically changed for you after the BAFTA nomination in 2021?

I think The White Tiger pretty much changed everything for me, with or without the BAFTA nomination. To be able to be part of such a film was in itself life-changing. It opened doors for me and gave me opportunities to work with people in the west I only used to dream about. Even in India, to be working with Zoya Akhtar, Raj and DK, I really feel that The White Tiger did everything for me. So yeah, I'm very very grateful for that.

So one of the reasons you were excited to be part of Extrapolations must be that it also stars Meryl Streep and Forest Whitaker?

Yeah, I did not share screen space with Meryl Streep. I am in a completely different episode. But just to be able to see my name written next to them during the credit role is such a special feeling. Part of the reason why I chose to be an actor was because of actors like Forest Whittaker and Meryl Streep. Their movies, the powerful message they give, watching them, and how they chose to use their power of being storytellers to become part of stupendous films, to be part of such powerful narratives. I wanted to follow their path, I wanted to become an actor after watching them. So to see my name written next to theirs on the credit roll was like a dream come true moment.

Since you are part of the Hollywood industry too now, can you comment on Hollywood's growing interest towards India?

I don't quite know yet, but as I can see, it is changing rapidly because they identify India as the big potential market. In the future, there will be characters written that are more diverse. Right now I know a lot of actors, including me, who feel that sometimes it gets a little limiting for us to perform characters that are offered, but it will change, once we become part of more such narratives. Once we also have writers who are familiar with Indian cultures and other sub-continents, the scenario will change.

Right now, I'm so thankful that RRR and The Elephant Whisperers won, I'm also glad about All That Breathes although it didn't win. They became part of such a big conversation. This year was a game-changer for us and it will get better from here.

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