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Ajay Naidu Biography from Wikipedia
Ajay Kalahastri Naidu (born 12 February 1972) is an American actor.
Naidu was born in Evanston, Illinois and raised in Chicago, the son of Indian immigrants to the U.S.[1] He attended Evanston Township High School. As an actor, he trained with the American Repertory Theater's Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University.[1]
His first professional acting job was the film Touch and Go (released in 1986) which he won from an open call, this in turn led to television jobs.He starred in the tv-movie, Lady Blue (1985) as "Paquito". This was followed by an ABC Afterschool Special episode, "No Greater Gift" (1985), where he played "Nick Santana", a 12-year old boy with a terminal illness. He then appeared in an uncredited role as "Ahmed" in the "MacGyver" tv series, during the first season, in episode, "To Be a Man" in 1986.
Other film credits when younger include Where the River Runs Black (1986) and Vice Versa (1988). Between 1988 and 1995 he worked extensively in classical
theatre.
He returned to film acting in SubUrbia (1996), where he was praised for his role as the convenience store owner, "Nazeer Choudhury" and for which he was nominated for an independent spirit award for best supporting actor.
On screen, Naidu has appeared in the film Office Space, as well as K-Pax, π, Requiem for a Dream, Bad Santa, The War Within, American Chai, The Guru,
Waterborne and Loins of Punjab Presents and many many more. He co-starred in the sitcom LateLine and had guest starring roles on the television dramas
The Sopranos, in the episode entitled Big Girls Don't Cry, as well as The West Wing. In 1997, Naidu was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his
role in the independent film subUrbia. Naidu has been working extensively with musicians from the Asian underground music movement for many years and his
vocals have appeared on many records most notably Talvin Singh's mercury award winner "OK". In 2006 he directed his first feature film "Ashes" which
is due out in 2009. His most recent Theatre credits include A world tour of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure with Simon McBurney's Theatre Complicite,
The Resitable rise of Arturo Ui alongside Al Pacino, and The little Flower of East Orange at New York's Public Theater. [2] He is currently engaged to
actress Heather Burns.[3]
References
1. ^ a b Cindy Yoon."Interview with Ajay Naidu".Asiasource.29 April 2003. Retrieved 5 August 2006.
2. ^ Past Winner Database. "The Envelope".Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on 5 August 2006.
3. ^ Daniel Maurer."Tribeca: The Party Report".Metro New York. 26 April 2006. Retrieved 5 August 2006.
Ajay Naidu Interview
Chicago native Ajay Naidu gets serious with life, acting
By JON SINGER
Ajay Naidu was hilarious as Samir Nag, Naga, Nagheenanajar! in "Office Space." First, he faked his Indian accent – he was born and raised in Evanston, Ill., a Chicago suburb. Second, he played the stereotypical Indian businessman to perfection: clean cut, choppy English, and being a trusty sidekick.
"It was super fun," he says of making "Office Space." "I just remember Mike [Judge, director] telling me to break dance and how it was really important that I do that."
"[Judge] was kind of cool because he was taking risks on everybody and when I got that part I realized that and those kids, David Herman and Ron Livingston, are really hardcore and really wonderful guys, awesome," Naidu says. "With Mike – there is a genius, you know? He's an inventor, surfer, beyond the fact that he's super-magnetic, brilliant and funny, you just trust him."
Throughout the filming of "Office Space," the actors and creators fought some artistic battles trying to accurately complete Judge’s vision.
"[Judge's] vision was being thwarted greatly by the studio. He was under a lot of stress. His vision of it was quite different than what they were letting him do," Naidu confesses. "He thought of super-apocalyptic and rough and totally industrial and, whoa, they weren't letting him go down that road. He was about the dehumanization of those people at the workplace. He wanted the function of a revolutionary Peter. So I think that it has been in its own way.".
OTHER ROLES
Naidu has also starred in "K-PAX," "Requiem for a Dream" "Pi," and "The Guru."
"I just came out with 'Scary Movie 3' and then I think I'm still in 'Bad Santa,' with Billy Bob Thornton. I think I'm still in it - I did a cameo. Sometimes people get cut out of shit. I was supposed to be in 'The Cat in the Hat' but I'm not anymore. But that's OK."
Naidu rarely escapes the Middle Eastern stereotype. His character names include Hindustani Troublemaker ("Bad Santa"), Mohammed ("Justice"), Paul Patel, Asif, Armand, Raji, Apu, Paquito and, my favorite, Dale. Ah, finally a nice American name. But, heck, it's great that Naidu can play the role well. It's obvious he's well-versed, intelligent and knowledgeable of acting. Why not find roles in big-name flicks?
BEGINNINGS
In real life, the 32-year-old Naidu has undergone hard times and takes his art very seriously. Naidu didn't learn his Indian accent from scratch. His parents came to the United States from India in 1964.
He had a great start to his career. "When I was 11 years old, my teacher in school saw an ad in the paper for an open call for a movie being shot in Chicago starring Michael Keaton and Maria Conchita Alonso," he says. "After school, I went and my mom met me down there for the open call. There were about a thousand kids."
The movie, of course, was the 1986 hockey romance "Touch and Go." Naidu played the Hispanic son of Alonso. I guess his brown skin was sufficient enough!
After the movie, Naidu did several more movies until he was 14, when he went back to school in Evanston and studied theater for 10 years. Naidu has always taken his acting seriously, even as a young student.
"I did as much theatre as possible and studied acting as much as possible," Naidu said. "When I got out of high school, I didn't go to college right away. I went to Conservatory for a year and a half after I went a year and a half to Columbia College. I worked around Chicago in the theater, like the Goodman and other companies like that.
"There was a lot going on in my family, so I really needed to be there in Chicago at that time. I wasn't really able to leave and go to college properly at that time
"Then I auditioned for the American Repertory Theatre for Harvard and I got in there. I had to get my parents off my back. I grew up in Chicago hardcore, partied a lot. I grew up break-dancing and doing all kinds of crazy stuff like that. It was a really beautiful time while I was there. But I really had to leave to come back to do anything."
THE FUTURE
"Since '95, '96 I kept acting and writing this movie that I want to go home and direct in Chicago," Naidu says.
Naidu will write, direct and produce the upcoming 2004 release, "Ashes." The film is in its final re-write stage, and will find an independent release.
"I have a lot of different drafts and versions of it, but the people that I'm working with now are quite serious," Naidu says. "It's in a much more realistic place than it's ever been. It's too much of a familial movie to not make. It's a social drama. It's tackling ethnocentric manic depression.
"[It will feature] different variations on health issues and Indian communities versus a lot of other communities. In one sort of particular world in Chicago. Near Devon – a very small neighborhood in the city.
"It's very much autobiographical, but at the same time very much imagined, predictable. My sister killed herself when I was 18 and she was 27. So it is based on our relationship and how she was my best friend. It's kind of like an ode to my family."
"I'm working seriously on my movie and just wanting to go home and make that at all costs, no matter what happens," Naidu says. "I'm just waiting for signs of spring on my own project."
Ajay Naidu Quotes
Acting school was summer camp, and I needed concentration camp. I had so many different ideas swirling between culture and how to tie things together.
Ajay Naidu
All India radio was worldwide.
Ajay Naidu
America makes up its own mind about what it wants to see.
Ajay Naidu
I applied to American Repertory School up at Harvard at got in.
Ajay Naidu
I got heavily into the drum-and-bass scene, which is really wicked.
Ajay Naidu
I had been working early in my life in films - since I was 11.
Ajay Naidu
I hear music as narrative.
Ajay Naidu
I knew I was happy when I was dancing.
Ajay Naidu
I like the theatre because you paint with broad strokes. To me the theatre is stretching its definition really far.
Ajay Naidu
I love films for the fact that it is like working under a microscope. It is sort of like a laboratory.
Ajay Naidu
I think that I have sold out sometimes.
Ajay Naidu
I think that rap is narrative, when it's done right.
Ajay Naidu
I want to present interesting stories that don't qualify themselves just by virtue of their ethnographic type.
Ajay Naidu
In every character I play, I try to imbibe something. Every film is a learning process for me.
Ajay Naidu
It is important to keep your head up and follow what you believe is right.
Ajay Naidu
It is important to make your own stuff. Even if you are not an actor, it is important to not stop involving yourself as a creative person.
Ajay Naidu
It is important to tell good stories. You can tell stories even if they are not huge, epic, and wonderful. You can still take the responsibility for
being a scribe of your tribe.
Ajay Naidu
My family was very supportive of my acting. They didn't really have a choice because I got jobs acting before anyone could really say anything. It paid
my way through college and helped my family out.
Ajay Naidu
My first acting job happened by accident when I was really young. I was in fifth grade and my teacher saw an ad in the paper and took me to the audition
after school and I got the part.
Ajay Naidu
Part of the work is determining through what instrument you are playing. Actors are physical, olympian storytellers and we should be able to create
entire landscapes with nothing.
Ajay Naidu
Rap is rhythm and poetry. Hip-hop is storytelling and poetry as well.
Ajay Naidu
The camera is interested in what you are thinking as opposed to just what you are doing or saying.
Ajay Naidu
The loneliness is when you pick up and move, even if you are not originally from that place, and you have some memories that you want to embrace. Having
a life in transit, I feel like you are always looking out the back window.
Ajay Naidu
The turntable is now an instrument at the Smithsonian.
Ajay Naidu
There is extraordinary similarities between the Midwest in America and Europe in that there is this sense of vast, open sky and loneliness and cold.
Ajay Naidu
There's got to be something greater than us.
Ajay Naidu
We make a contract within ourselves as actors or directors or writers about how much of ourselves we let into projects. You can actually figure out
before you work on something how much blood you will have to let emotionally.
Ajay Naidu
When you get to play with the big boys, your game improves drastically.
Ajay Naidu
You have to work with what you are given, even in Shakespeare. we have our form and it is important that we free ourselves through it.
Ajay Naidu
Ajay Naidu on Facebook - www.facebook.com/pages/Ajay-Naidu/104041642967105