The stars, on film

Hollywood photographer Mark Bennington is doing a book on the “real lives” of Bollywood.

If his Twitter feed is to be believed, Mark Bennington has recently “photographed Arjun Rampal and his dog in his Mumbai penthouse” and “clicked the one-and-only Zeneet Aman!! [sic] so lovely!” Among other things, he thanks actor Ashwin Mushran for a “Great show amigo” and says he enjoyed a train ride to Juhu “hanging out the train door”.

Yes, Bennington is into Mumbai. An American actor with some TV credits (including on NYPD Blue and V.I.P.) and theatre experience, Bennington became a preferred Los Angeles “headshot photographer” after his grandfather left him his cameras. Six years in New York on stage and TV, and four in LA doing more TV have given way to eight years of portrait photography. He specialises in portfolio shoots of aspiring actors in Hollywood.

In Hollywood, Bennington is in demand. In Bollywood, he is a nuisance. He is here to do a book of 122 photographs and 22 interviews which he says will show the real lives of the film industry. He wants to title it Living the Dream. His subjects range from “strugglers” who give five auditions a day to megastars like Abhishek Bachchan, who may have given “no auditions ever”. They are photographed in their everyday working lives, outside a casting office in a Mumbai slum or in a star trailer on set.

“There’s more hope here,” Bennington says of Bollywood versus Hollywood. “There’s more goodwill, a lighter approach. There’s so much storytelling and a great community.” In LA, by contrast, he says there’s a “James Dean syndrome”, where actors are serious, intense and conflicted.

“The one thing I heard before I came was that actors stay in Bandra,” he says. So he found a room in that suburb. “In Costa Coffee in Bandra,” he says, “chances are there are going to be actors around — either that or just stunningly goodlooking people.” He met a woman who called herself a professional catalyst. Two days later he was lunching with a lawyer who handles new actors, who introduced him to Anurag Kashyap’s production assistant. From these contacts came the first rush of 45 actor interviews. Six weeks of interview time has become five months — he started in November 2010. “My whole life has been emails, phone calls, SMSes,” he says.

How does he break the ice with busy stars? “I try and talk about myself a little to keep it real.” But stars’ patience is limited. “They don’t want to know about you. An actor is in the business of being consumed, you are the product. So I understand.” The exception was Boman Irani who asked Bennington a lot of questions about himself.

Bennington’s favourite Hindi film is Dabangg “It’s awesome. It is pure, unapologetic Bollywood — a name which [Salman Khan] hates, he thinks it’s derogatory because it’s a ripoff of ‘Hollywood’.” He likes the star, whom he calls a “normal” guy. He also likes Ranveer Singh, a near-unknown who jumped straight into a three-film deal with Yash Raj Films and “told me his whole story”; Kareena Kapoor, for her lineage, looks and professionalism; and the plainspeaking Naseeruddin Shah: “He is an outlaw. That’s part of why people love him so much. I picture him with a gun and bandanna.”

In May, Bennington says he’ll be home in LA, finalising the book and going back to earning a living. But Bollywood has clearly found itself yet another willing victim.