The man’s name is Satya Bhabba, he is the first Evil Ex to face Scott Pilgrim, and he has signed on to play the lead character in the long awaited adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.
Rushdie’s 1981 novel won the Booker of Bookers award in 1993 and is a masterpiece of magic realist writing, telling the story of the lives of two babies born within the first hour of India’s independence from Great Britain and the powers they and the other nine hundred and ninety eight babies, who make up Midnight’s Children, share.
Rushdie’s own adaptation of his book was almost made thirteen years ago, into a five part mini series for the BBC, when a problem with the Sri Lankan government burst the production bubble. An adaptation for the theatre, in partnership with the RSC, happened a few years later, whose success Rusdhie commented on,
Speaking as the author of the adaptation as well as the novel, I liked these differences. I thought of the play as a sort of second cousin of the book – perhaps its illegitimate child; its relative, not its mirror-image, and I thought its brasher, more aggressively in-your-face style was powerful and effective and properly theatrical, while remaining true to the book’s spirit.
The response from audiences was interestingly divided. It soon became clear that the people who most enjoyed the show were those who had not read the novel.
This quote comes from a longer article written for The Guardian newspaper last year, which you can find here, on the process of adaptation and one feels that the time has finally come to bring his seminal work to the big screen. I saw the theatre adaptation in London some years back and enjoyed it very much, and the book is incredibly dear to me, so I’m hoping the sense of fire and colour, the cartoonish corruption and fierce wit are as present in the film version.
Speaking with The Playlist Bhabba said,
I play Saleem [Sinai] in that. I’m learning a little Hindhi and I’ll have magical powers in the film as well, it’s a theme,
He will be working with Rushdie and director Deepa Mehta on the film, which, it is hoped, will roll before the cameras later this year.
