Trivia / Gandhi

• Actor-Shared Background:
  • Ben Kingsley's paternal family was from the Indian state of Gujarat, the same state Mohandas K. Gandhi was from. His real name is Krishna Pandit Bhanji.
  • Candice Bergen was, besides her acting career, an accomplished photographer who considered her character, Margaret Bourke-White one of her idols.
• All-Star Cast: Ben Kingsley (albeit retroactively), Candice Bergen, Edward Fox, John Gielgud, Trevor Howard, John Mills, Nigel Hawthorne and Martin Sheen to name a few.
• California Doubling: The South Africa scenes were all shot in India, as given Richard Attenborough's anti-apartheid politics filming there would've been difficult.
• Creator Backlash: A minor one, but Richard Attenborough stated numerous times that Steven Spielberg should have won the Best Director Oscar for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial instead of him, and E.T. should have won Best Picture. Indeed, he actually apologized to Spielberg at the Director's Guild Awards. This gesture touched Spielberg enough that he cast and directed Attenborough as John Hammond in Jurassic Park, about a decade later.
• Darkhorse Casting: Ben Kingsley was primarily a stage actor with one minor film role to his name and several television credits.
• Doing It for the Art:
  • The film was a real labour of love for Richard Attenborough, having wanting to make it since the late 1960s.
  • Martin Sheen donated his salary to charity.
• Dyeing for Your Art/Method Acting: Ben Kingsley prepared for his role by studying newsreel footage of Gandhi, reading books on and by the man, dieting, losing weight, darkening his skin, practicing Yoga, and learning to spin thread just as Gandhi did.
• Extremely Lengthy Creation: In 1962 Richard Attenborough was contacted by Motilal Kothari, an Indian-born civil servant working with the Indian High Commission in London and a devout follower of Gandhi. Kothari insisted that Attenborough meet him to discuss a film about Gandhi. Attenborough agreed, after reading Louis Fischer's biography of Gandhi and spent the next 18 years attempting to get the film made. He was able to meet prime minister Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi through a connection with Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India. Nehru approved of the film and promised to help support its production, but his death in 1964 was one of the film's many setbacks. Attenborough would dedicate the film to the memory of Kothari, Mountbatten, and Nehru. Attenborough first offered Candice Bergen her cameo role in 1966 while they were filming The Sand Pebbles.
• Fake Nationality: Largely averted. Ben Kingsley's mother was a white English woman but his father, although he was born in Kenya, was (like Gandhi himself) of Gujarati Indian ethnicity.
• Playing Against Type: Thanks to his appearance giving him a perpetual Death Glare, Amrish Puri got typecast into villainous roles (most famously outside of India as the evil Thuggee priest Mola Ram in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). Here, he plays Dada Abdullah Hajee Adab, president of the Natal Indian Congress who demanded equal rights for Indians in South Africa and who was a mentor and ally of Gandhi's.
• Real-Life Relative: Gerald Sim (Magistrate) was Richard Attenborough's brother-in-law.
• Referenced by...:
  • One of the in-universe ads in UHF is a trailer for an Actionized Sequel to Gandhi in which the title character is the polar opposite of his real-life counterpart, being a steak-munching, gun-toting vigilante.
  • In Lawrence Block's series about Professional Killer Keller, Dot mentions the movie about "a little guy who talked funny and at the end he got shot". Keller is somewhat confused as he thinks she's referring to Little Caesar.
• Saved from Development Hell: The film took over thirty years to make it to the big screen.
  • In 1952, Gabriel Pascal secured an agreement with the Prime Minister of India (Jawaharlal Nehru) to produce a biopic. However, Pascal died in 1954 before preparations were completed.
  • In 1962, Richard Attenborough was contacted by Motilal Kothari, an Indian-born civil servant working with the Indian High Commission in London and a devout follower of Gandhi. Kothari insisted that Attenborough meet him to discuss a film about Gandhi. Attenborough agreed, after reading Louis Fischer's biography of Gandhi and spent the next eighteen years attempting to get the film made. He was able to meet prime minister Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi through a connection with Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India. Nehru approved of the film and promised to help support its production, but his death in 1964 was one of the film's many setbacks. Attenborough would dedicate the film to the memory of Kothari, Mountbatten, and Nehru.
  • David Lean and Sam Spiegel had planned to make a Gandhi biopic after The Bridge on the River Kwai, reportedly starring Alec Guinness, but the project was abandoned in favour of Lawrence of Arabia. Attenborough reluctantly approached Lean with his own Gandhi project in the late 1960s, and Lean agreed to direct and offered Attenborough the lead role. Instead Lean began filming Ryan's Daughter, during which time Motilai Kothari had died and the project fell apart.
  • Attenborough attempted to resurrect the project again in 1976 with backing from Warner Bros.. Then prime minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India and shooting would be impossible. Co-producer Rani Dube persuaded Gandhi to provide the first $10 million from the National Film Development Corporation of India, chaired by D. V. S. Raju at that time, on the back of which the remainder of the funding was finally raised. Finally in 1980, Attenborough was able to secure the remainder of the funding needed to make the film. Screenwriter John Briley had introduced him to Jake Eberts, the chief executive at the new Goldcrest production company that raised approximately two-thirds of the budget. Filming began November 1980 and finished in 1981.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Ben Kingsley looked so much like Gandhi that many natives thought him to be Gandhi's ghost.
• Star-Making Role: For Ben Kingsley, as he won the Best Actor Academy Award.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Robert Bolt, whom Robert Zinneman initially asked to write his screenplay, was hired by Richard Attenborough after Zinneman backed out and produced a 200-plus page draft script. Attenborough strongly disliked Bolt's script, feeling Bolt focused too heavily on the British characters at the expense of Gandhi and the Indians. American writer John Briley wrote the finished screenplay.
  • Dustin Hoffman expressed interest in the title role (seriously), before backing out to star in Tootsie. Anthony Hopkins was also offered the role, but decided he would be laughably miscast and backed out. Other candidates included Dirk Bogarde, Albert Finney, Alec Guinness and John Hurt. At one point, Richard Attenborough even considered playing Gandhi himself for fear that he wouldn't find a suitable performer.
  • Laurence Olivier was announced for General Dyer in 1980. Before David Lean had to abort his version of the Mahatma's life, Olivier was scheduled to portray the last viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten.

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