In conversation with Anupam Kher

What are your plans in LA? A friend of mine in LA just saw a hoarding of Silver Linings Playbook (SLP) where my face is as prominent as that of the other stars of the film. I am traveling this week. The Screen Actors’ Guild award is on Jan 27, and its pre-event organized by Entertainment Weekly where the entire who’s-who of Hollywood would hobnob, is a day before on 26 Jan. On 24 January a director-friend Varun Khanna with whom I did a film Spice Of Life will host a party for me. Then on 25 January Tabrez Noorani who was the line producer of Life Of Pi, Zero Dark Hour and Slumdog Millionaire, is having another party where he will have the cast and crew of the films I mentioned. So it’s an exciting week ahead. Does it surprise you to see yourself next to Robert de Niro in the hoardings? I’ve never looked at life from a geo-political prism. To me recognition in India is as important as anywhere else, and my image on hoardings with Mr Amitabh Bachchan matter as much as the hoardings with de Niro, if not more. I just hope more Asian actors make the same impact. That makes me happy. If I allow myself to be happy about being seen with de Niro today I’d leave myself vulnerable to feeling unhappy if it doesn’t happen tomorrow. I grab the moment as it comes. Does your success in SLP gives you leverage to negotiate for more roles in the West? It would be easier for me to access roles out West that suit my persona after SLP. After the SAG nominations and the 8 Oscars nominations it’s hard to ignore me. The producers of SLP have just come out with a 12-minute clip. The kind of prominence they’ve given me in it is fantastic. On Saturday Chris Tucker spoke about me on the Jay Leno Show. My British agent for the last ten years Ruth Young is also looking after my work in Hollywood. She is very capable agent. She will look after my trans-Atlantic work.