An interview with Mahadeo Shivraj – NY-based Guyanese actor and filmmaker

By Jihan Ramroop

Born and grew up in: Georgetown, Guyana

Films: 83 Million Gees, Till I Find a Place, A Jasmine for a Gardener, Brown Sugar Too Bitter For Me

1. Where did you go to school?

In Georgetown. I went to Central Prep and then I went to South Georgetown Government Secondary School.

2. When did you realize you wanted to be an actor?

That is a question I get all the time and… I don’t know if the age is correct or not. But, I remember I used to go with my- I didn’t grow up with my parents my first fourteen years. I lived with my grandparents, and they weren’t really my grandparents either. They were my…grandfather, his sister and her husband. I just ended up with them for some reason or the other. So even though my parents lived just a few blocks away, I lived there permanently.

These grandparents loved going to the movies, they loved the Indian movies. Empire Cinema showed Indian movies and Liberty Cinema showed a different movie.  In the week they would go to one and then [go to] the other one later on. I saw so many movies and I don’t know if that was my inspiration. Since at the age of five I could remember distinctly telling them, ‘I could do that, I could do that.’ And that’s what I wanted to do. As I grew up, that feeling grew stronger in me.

3. Did you receive any formal training in acting?

Well in Guyana, we don’t really have an acting school…So whatever I’ve done, it’s like what I would’ve done on the job-training… It’s like you’re placed in a position, you get an opportunity to act and then you gotta do [it]. However, when I came to America, I realized that they weren’t satisfied with natural talent and stuff like that- experience. They wanted to see that you were studying. So I did go to Herbert Berghof Studios in Manhattan, and I also went to NYU [New York University] where I did a few courses [at] both places.

4. Do you suffer from stage fright?

Oh yeah, when I was going to Herbert Berghof I had finished about sixty-something plays. But up to now, before I go onstage I’ll get nervous…I’m almost trembling.

I remember in a play at the Billie Holiday Theater [in Brooklyn, New York] that ran for five and a half months [with] eighty-four performances. Every night that I had to go up there- even though I had done it so many times… I was nervous every night because it’s a different set of people coming there. However…once I step up there and the lights hit me, within a few- I don’t even know when it happens, but in a few seconds it [stage fright] disappears.

5. How was it like auditioning for roles?

You have to find a way of getting an opportunity to audition. I have learned that if you can’t deal with rejection, you need to change and do something else. I think the ratio is out of fifty times, you’ll hear ‘yes’ once. The second thing I learnt is that it’s not about you. It’s not about your talent. It’s just that you’re not suited for what they want.

Recently I did, “The Americans.” The audition, I thought I messed up. I messed up once, twice. It was freezing. When I went in there, I was real cold-like. Maybe the casting director sensed that because I apologized the first time I slipped up. And she said, ‘No, no, you probably got brain-freeze. It’s very cold out there.’ She was making excuses for me and I was like what is this. And when I finished, I had written that off. I know I did great. I know I did my job eventually. But I wrote it off… And that one, it’s strange enough. I auditioned like 12:30, by five o’clock I got a call saying, ‘Oh, we want to offer you the role.’

I had two scenes with Tina Fey in one episode. When I auditioned for that, they asked for a Pakistani hot dog vendor. When I went there I saw hundreds of guys that looked like me. From their speech I know they’re all Pakistani and Middle Eastern. The casting director said, ‘By the way, you’re trying to do a Pakistani accent?’ I said, ‘Yes, because I’m not from Pakistani.’ She said, ‘Where are you from?’ I said ‘Guyana.’ She said, ‘Where on the map is that?’ And I said, ‘I get that all the time. I said Guyana is in South America and I…tell her the whole geography. She said, ‘Okay. Do it the way you would do it.’ The next thing you know I got the part.

6. How did your next project emerge?

I called my friend. I said, ‘You know what? Here’s what we’ll do. We’re not gonna make a Guyanese movie. We’re gonna make an American movie…trying to compete with Hollywood with $10,000 [US] dollars or $20,000, is like impossible. But, if you do something that is of quality, that is good, you never know who’s gonna see it and who’s attention it can attract. My friend wrote a script. Actually sent it to me 4 AM, New Year’s Day morning. So that was my New Year’s gift. And now we’re in pre-production for that movie. The working title- I don’t know if we’ll change the name yet- is Tangled Dreams.

7. Do you have a release date when the film will be out?

Oh no. My intention here is to submit it to the film festivals. So submitting it to the festival- I should say this. 5,000 movies are made every year and submitted to the film festivals. Only 200 are screened at the festival. These are movies that have big names. So those names are the ones who actually get screened in the festival. With all those odds against me, I am still not giving up. I still feel confident that if I do something that is good, you never know who will chance upon it and [say] ‘hey, I like this movie.’

8. How did the idea for Brown Sugar Too Bitter For Me come about?

Brown Sugar was in the making, you gotta say, twenty-something years ago. It didn’t really happen that way. The writer and I knew each other as teenagers… We used to talk about making something like Brown Sugar with these songs and all of that. We discussed it again and again. I reminded him at least about fifty times and he never did anything… So…I said, ‘Man, that project we talked about. Just write a play and I’ll do it for Indian Arrival [Day] in Guyana, how about that?’ And he was like, ‘Alright.’ So he wrote it as a play and sent it to me.

I had enough time to do it as a play for Indian Arrival [Day] in Guyana when I read it. He put the songs that we’re gonna use and all of that. And I was like, ‘It wouldn’t look right for us to be talking Guyanese, and then sing with a Trini accent. It would be fine if we talk in English and do [it] in all Hindi songs. That would be acceptable.

So I said, ‘You know what, let’s do this. I’m not gonna do a play. I’m gonna make a movie out of it. But, I’m not gonna use these songs. I’m gonna create brand new songs.’ It took me fourteen months. No, it actually wasn’t the year itself of 150th [Indian Arrival Anniversary], it was the year before. So, because I had that period, I had enough time. Fourteen months I had these guys writing songs, sending it back to me… He [Somnauth Narine, the writer] did a fantastic job because this movie is creating a tremendous stir for those who’ve seen it.

My friend who teaches at a school invited some teachers.  They saw the movie. Days after, they told him, ‘Why don’t you send this movie to the festivals?’ And he said, ‘Why do you say that?’ Their answer was, ‘When we see Hollywood movies, we forget them. But when we see this movie, we can’t forget it.’ So it means that there is something that we have that has the ability to attract attention…it just needs the opportunity to be seen.

9. On piracy…

Imagine I only release Brown Sugar Too Bitter for Me on DVD…the month before the last [November 2014]. But, in 2013, December, the movie was already out in Guyana. However, it wasn’t the real movie. Because of the popularity that my first movie Till I Find a Place created in Guyana. …The pirates took Brown Sugar Too Bitter for Me poster off the Internet [and] put it on a DVD jacket.

But, the actual DVD was a movie named Karma that I acted in years ago. So when you buy that you think you’re buying Brown Sugar. Now, people are thinking that I’m cheating them.

   Then, they took Jasmine for a Gardener, the same thing, and the actual DVD is a movie named Truth that I was in years ago. Now, they’ve gone further, taking my picture off my Facebook page, putting it on a DVD, and saying how this is a new movie the guy came out with. But…it’s an African movie or it’s a Jamaican movie. I’m not even in it. Then, when I walk down the road people [say] ‘Oh man, I always support you…’ And I’m like, ‘Support me how?’ ‘I always buy your movies’. I said, ‘But I don’t sell any movie.’

It’s the pirates who are pirating. It’s good that the word spreads, but I’m not getting an opportunity to recover my costs.

10. What advice would you give to aspiring actors and filmmakers?

My advice would be that it’s difficult to make this as a career- to make a living out of it. So, after thinking about that if you still want to do it, go for it.

The important thing is homework. Like…when you read a script, it’s not the first idea that comes to mind [that] is the best. You have to study. Why am I saying this? You have to ask yourself a lot of questions because when you read it, something will come to your mind right away. And it’s the easiest one that will come. But sometimes the one that would be more interesting, is in the background that you haven’t really explored. It’s not what you see first on the surface. It’s when you go below the surface.