Interview with Sir Ben Kingsley
Has A Life-Changing Impact
Who doesn’t admire this actor with his versatile range of roles and a phenomenal grasp on the emotional side when it comes to his characters on-screen? I do.
Sir Ben Kingsley is one of those deep and thinking souls who gently push us to the brink of taking a different look at things and think out-of-the-box. This rare interview and heart-to-heart conversation with this actor, only confirmed my admiration at his achievement as a super creative artist.
The Jungle Book, directed by Jon Favreau, features Sir Ben Kingsley’s voice as Bagheera, a powerful mentor to the man cub named Mowgli.
Photo: Disney
What fascinates me about this actor is that all his roles and characters he plays and portrays and gives voice to have to be recognizable and genuine to a human eye and sole. Before everything else, the characters need to rezonate with human nature. Adding his gift to such a task puts Sir Ben Kingsley as one of the most daring and gifted actors ever.
I offered an Indian accent as Bagheera, to play him as an Indian colonel or general, probably a colonel. [Jon Favreau] felt that it didn’t fit the universality of the appeal of the story, that it might make it a province of one particular period of history, culture, hierarchy. So I think he made a very good choice in making it more universal, more accessible.
Having said that, there’s still the ghost of the Indian colonel in my performance – it’s in his tough but very affectionate love [towards Mowgli].
Bagheera in Jon Favreau’s movie is a steady and patient mentor to Mowgli. In the previous versions of the Jungle Book, the coaching panther seems to be more irritable by human cub’s actions when they do not come up to certain expectations. Here’s what Sir Ben Kingsley said about a change of his Bagheera.
I’m sure it’s inevitable to use one’s experiences as a parent. I think in Kipling’s time, which was colonial Britain, – and I think actually Victoria might still have been on the throne when he wrote the novel, which is extraordinary, – you did discipline your children through irritation and lack of empathy and impatience, rather than love and encouragement.
I think that if we want to translate it into the 21st Century, then yes, there is irritation in Bagheera, and there are those limits that he won’t let the boy transcend. But that it’s done with more empathy and more affections rather than from the book of rules. So there is a shift.
As Mowgli makes his way through “apprenticeship” to become a true wolf and be one with the Jungle, he meets with the unexpected situations and goes through tribulations to prove himself strong, thus being accepted by all as an equal in the Jungle.
One of the darling characters in the movie is Baloo, the bear whose love for honey may seem clouds everything. Yet, Baloo is one of those characters who has a positive effect on Mowgli during his journey through the Jungle.
We asked Sir Ben Kingsley which character he related to the most: Bagheera or free-spirited Baloo.
I think I’m both. I think we’re all both. I think that when you see, read a great novel or see a film like this, you realize that they all represent different aspects of you.
As these animals all represent different challenges to the central challenge of the young boy, which is adulthood, adolescence and adulthood, massive challenges.
All the characters are all part of us rather than any one individual character. And that we change according to, you know, the people in front of us, to dads and moms and, and that’s how we approach them.
Playing on the Shakesperian level at his acting career, Sir Ben Kingsley loves to add a colorful tone of voice to his characters, pulling us, the viewers, into the situation of things.
I go back to Shakespeare and the density of that text, and how you have to give every word its appropriate weight and emphasis. In a great speech, I play Hamlet, for example. So that I do enjoy and find it empowering and important, urgent, to express things vocally. It’s part of my DNA.
The recorded voice is important not only for the viewer side, it is an absolute help and guide to all the people who work behind-the-scenes on animation and editing.
It’s part of my training, but then to surrender one’s whole physical side to an animating genius who is thousands of miles away – and maybe there’s 12 of them working on Bagheera’s body, – you know, that’s very exciting and allows me – or makes it very imperative that I explain to them through my voice, so that they can hear what I’m doing, and they can animate to my voice.
Photo: Disney
It’s all very exciting. Story telling for me is the essential thing. If I’m telling a story with my voice or my voice and my body – or my voice, my body and an action, and then a, in, in a costume and then all sorts of things added on, the essential is the story telling.
The recording of the voices wasn’t a quick process. Jon Favreau made sure that all of his actors are well-equipped with their full arsenal of voice variations and imagery in their minds to portray their chosen animals in the movie. Sir Ben Kinglsey reflects on this process in his own way.
[The recording] was spread out over at least a year. As we developed it with Jon into the story, he was able to show us more and more what our physical shape would be on screen. So, I did have two days with the boy [Neel Sethi, Mowgli], which was great. I was able to, we were able to establish that dynamic between us. And then keep that as part of and let that inform our performance even when we were separated by geographics.
You really cannot embark on a massive project like this unless your director, he or she, has amazing taste and judgment. And Jon has both. Therefore, given that he has the intelligence to see the bigger picture always in his head, he was a wonderful guide as to tone, timbre and pitch in the film. So it was really wonderful experience.
Sir Ben Kingsley higly speaks of Neel Sethi, Mowgli, who was chosen out of 2000 who tried for the role.
With all respect to its predecessor in the ’60’s, that was an animated cartoon talking to animated cartoons. But this is a little boy – and we are blessed with him, – Neel, he’s amazing, literally. What you see is he’s with animals, which is wonderful.
I’d love to offer this excerpt from our long conversation with Sir Ben Kingsley as a remarkable thing to make a mental note of.
And you have to prepare young people for life by lovingly introducing them to the fact that there is light and shade, that both exist side-by-side in life, and that if you dilute, distort, sugar coat, sentimentalize everything in the hope that you’re gonna keep a child’s attention, you won’t.
You get the child’s attention, he immediately go dark. Whenever I read stories to my children, they would always ask me to read the scary bits over and over again.
And they would love it, because they were hearing it in a safe place. That’s the ingredient. If they are introduced to that dark side of life in a really safe environment by their parents, then it’s fun.
One thought on “Bagheera Is Magnificent And Triamphant In The Jungle Book #JungleBookEvent”
He is an excellent actor.Do not remember him doing any voices for cartoons though?Would like to see the movie!