After my interview
with Sir Ben Kingsley, he caught me off-guard later by asking me, of all
things, if I liked my shoes. "How
do you like your Mer-rills
?", he inquired, in his
bonafide English timbre. "I love to wear mine
on set,
" his free
endorsement concluded, my witty retort lost within my surprised state. But
though jarring at first, this moment made sense in the larger picture of his
filmography—definitively unpredictable, at times thoroughly pedestrian, but
all with an appreciation for the specific, human things in one's character.
He's
a massive presence, one even with kudos from the Queen herself, but in his own
words still sees himself as someone with primitive human qualities, telling
stories in front of a campfire.

Kingsley's chameleonic,
prolific relationship with many, many different campfires (from "Gandhi" to "Iron Man 3" and everything
in-between) hits a sweet-spot with "Learning
to Drive" from director
Isabel Coixet. In the film, Kingsley plays Darawn Singh, a selfless Sikh
driving instructor who helps a recently-single New York book critic (Patricia
Clarkson) get her driver's license. Through his calm, sometimes
comical philosophy of driving, and her experience with relationships, they
support each other with their marital worries.

Kingsley and
Clarkson previously worked with Coixet in the 2007 film "Elegy," based on the Philip
Roth novel "The Dying Animal." Aside from being a
striking rumination on very Roth-ian themes nonetheless from the directorial
perspective of a woman, "Elegy" also gave the
diverse actor one of his most exposed roles. It also features some very
touching scenes between Kingsley and the late Dennis Hopper.

As one can imagine
from the soul that he puts into his disparate set of characters, such as with
the tenderness in how he treats Darwan, Kingsley is a fascinating presence,
even when just sitting across from you in a hotel room. Before I talked to
Clarkson about her involvement with "Learning
to Drive," Kingsley spoke to
me with equal humility and zeal about his "function
in life," the importance of
his character being Sikh, how "Gandhi" provides an
untranslatable experience for an actor that CGI could never repeat, and more.

When
taking on this character, what was most important to you in your representation of Sikh
culture?

Oh! I actually saw
it as an individual. I didn't see him as representing a group. I
think that can be misleading for the actor, and I think it can lead to
generalizations. Since I've done fifteen years in the theater
as you know, and since moving from the theater to movies, I think of myself
more as a portrait artist, rather than a landscape painting. Theater is
landscape painting, and cinema is the delicate process of getting one
individual's
face onto the canvas, or the screen. So, I try to present a portrait of a
decent man. And a man who is committed to doing the right thing. And the choice
of him being a Sikh, I think is perfect for the narrative in a way that
Shakespeare chose Othello to be North African. Because there is certain
cultural buttons that you can press in different people, and they'll react entirely
differently. For the purpose of the narrative, my function is to bring to a
shattered, broken woman, who has lost faith, and feels that there is no decency
in manhood, whatsoever. And the heavens send her the perfect embodiment of, he
who does not shave his beard, he who does not cut his hair, he who wears a
turban, he who carries a sword. They send a warrior. That is what I focused on.
And the rest, from my colleague onset, Harpreet Singh Toor, who helped me tie
my turban on, and other folks that I've met, they are the external
embodiment. They are the body language, and the voice, the present how he meets
the world. And as you know, Sikhs wear a kind of uniform. And not only that,
the wonderful thing about the Sikhs is that they wear matching tie and turban.
That's
common, it really is a uniform. And honestly, it's such a great
choice on behalf of the writer to say, "No,
no. You send her one of them!
"And
so, to have at the end of the film her being able to say, "You're a good man, you're my faith,"is an amazing
journey for her. How she could ever, in the back of that cab, ever think that
she'd
every say those words, to him! The cab driver! She didn't notice him, of
course not. He doesn't exist, he's invisible. And
suddenly, he's visible. I don't know how many
times you have perhaps left your phone on the counter and go back for it, and
think, "If I hadn't left my tablet on
that counter in that store, if I hadn
't gone back for it,
I wouldn
't have met that, seen that, or heard that." Life-changing. She
leaves a manuscript in the back of my cab, life-changing! Or is it? Is it the
heavens, saying, "You need to see
this guy again?" I'm still working it
out. Is there any such thing as coincidence?

Either way, it's all a very
bizarre set of events. Life is unpredictable.

It's amazing! And yet,
it is the perfect pattern. With [her] scream to the heavens, of "I loathe men!",  to "You're my faith." Amazing.

Is it easier for
you to become a character who comes with a mythology or even previous
interpretations, or is it easier for you to play a civilian?

Ahh, gosh. I'm a storyteller. I
have also offered you the fact that my stories are now portraits, and I hope that
I'm
descended from the original primal storyteller, who was essential to his tribe,
her tribe. The storyteller was absolutely crucial to the survival of the tribe,
for maybe something as simple as lighting a fire as it grew darker, which must
have been terrifying because they have no guarantee that the sun would come up
again, which took a long time to work that one out. So religion must have
started by, "If I say something,
the sun will come up. Ooh! It worked!
" I
bet you that's
how religion started. I bet you! If somebody in even a slight position of power
said, "Okay, leave it to
me. IF you believe in me as a priest/priestess, I will go,
'Blah blah blah blah
blah
and the sun will
come up.
" My goodness! They
can do it! So I think I'm descended not from the "blah blah blah," but the genuine
leader, maybe a bit of "blah" too, who
encouraged, comforted, provoked the tribe with stories. That's really my job, my
function in life.

Is that what
interests you in taking on such diverse roles, of various time periods,
experiences, and religions?

It's honestly by
invitation. I have been nowhere without the offers that come to me. I can
select, I do, but it is by invitation. And I don't think I have any
visible strategy, or conscious strategy. I think maybe it's buried. It's deep in my
self-conscious what I should do next, or could do next. But it will only be
informed by when a script that arrives, and I read it and recognize that that
is what I must do.

If you had to
choose between a large project or a smaller project of equal potential, which
were shooting at the same time, which would you choose?

Try and do both
[laughs]. A very good agent will say, "I'll talk to them."

That's perfect. And you
shot this in five weeks, if I read that correctly?

No, 25 days.

So what it is about
a director that makes you say,
"I will go work with them again in that amount of time?"

Profound accuracy,
[and] always putting the camera in the right place, not only for the
performance but also for the environment, the landscape, what she wishes to be
on her canvas, and that she operates the camera herself. What she sees through
the eyepiece is what you in the audience will eventually see. A wonderful
capacity for using every ounce of creative energy that the actor can offer to
the camera. Nothing is wasted with her. And you never, as one does have
sometimes with some directors, have an inkling to say, "Did you like the
bit where I?
" which I call the "actor's begging bowl." It's partly that. But
it's
partly a lack of faith that they've got the camera in the right place,
and they're
not seeing all those layers that you're bringing to the portrait. But with
Isabel, you know she's seeing everything. Every single
layer that you're
offering, she will see it and build on it.

What about your
experience with
"Elegy" has resonated with
you years later?

Well, the
experience is parallel to this. In that because Isabel is Isabel, she therefore
brings a version of male vulnerability and male tenderness to the screen that
very few of her male counterparts are capable of doing. I tend to see many male
directors now presenting to the screen a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of
a stereotype.

In terms of men, or
in general?

In general; the
male. Whereas with ["Learning to Drive"] the short story
was written by a woman [Katha Pollitt], the screenplay is written by a woman
[Sarah Kernochan], and Dana Friedman, bless her, [who] decided to fund the film
with her male colleagues, and they were a great female presence in the film. As
with "Elegy," there was a man,
very different from Darwan Singh, but at the same time one doesn't understand
intimacy but is capable of it. And the other, David Kepesh, plays with
intimacy, and is intellectually removed, cocooned. But both are vulnerable. And
I have just felt that Isabel allowed me to bring those colors to the screen that
other directors may be completely blind to.

It was certainly
interesting, and distinct, to see woman direct a movie based on a Philip Roth
novel.

Very. But perfect!

There's one big question
in particular that connects
"Elegy" and "Learning to Drive"—do you feel that there is a definitive answer about
marriage and even fidelity, or is it to always remain a question?

I think it has to
remain a question. I think that there are so many different versions of the
word marriage, and so many different versions of our patterns of human
behavior, which are very much in flux, and have hardly taken baby steps in
terms of evolution. It's so funny that archaeologists and
paleontologists have been looking for the missing link for years, and it's driving around
here, we are the missing link. You're looking at it. These remain
questions. Rilke said, "Love the question," didn't he? And I think
we should love the question.

"Gandhi" was a massive
movie, and still holds the world record for the most extras in a film. Do you
feel the epics of today have gotten bigger than that scale, or are there just
more of them? Do you feel that we
're seeing a David
Lean, Richard Attenborough size, but just in a different form?

CGI has removed
thousands of people from the screen. There was no CGI in my film. They were
there. And for the actor to react to the presence of thousands of people coming
to their feet, and shouting my character's name, is an
experience that defies translation sitting here now. The body chemistry, the
extent to which the body chemistry changes and therefore governs your
performance. Because at any given time, a performance is a translation or an
expression of the body chemistry of that moment. Somebody with a ping-pong ball
at the end of a stick, running in front of a green screen saying, "Crowd over here! Crowd over here!" Sorry,
it doesn't
work. It invites terrible over-acting, and also your opposite player—for me
it was India—won't be there. CGI is not fool-proof, you
can tell. So, it was a terrible loss.

How has your
perception of audiences changed since you
've started film
acting? Or, has it remained the same?

My perception has
to come from that simple perspective of me sitting by that bonfire, telling
that story. And therefore, and not in a pompous way, not in a power or
ego-driven way, but in a tribal way, and in a way that's full of
gratitude, I am glad I do what I do for a living, and I am glad there are still
people listening to stories. And they will always be, because storytelling is
profoundly healing.

Nick Allen

Nick Allen is the former Senior Editor at RogerEbert.com and a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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