Naughty and nice

While some seem practised, he answers most of them with honesty and maturity that is unusual for a child of his age. “Jason, who has been a child actor himself, understood me very well. It’s from him that I learnt to keep my performance real and natural, as opposed to making it look like acting,” says Chand about television sit-com Arrested Development actor Jason Bateman, who made his directorial debut with Bad Words. Chand, a resident of New York, plays the lead role in the black comedy alongside Bateman.

The film tells the story of a 40-year-old Guy Trilby, who uses a loophole in a spelling bee competition to enter as a contestant. He sabotages it by winning against other eight-year-olds to reach the finale where he’s pitted against Chaitanya Chopra, played by Chand. Along the way, an unlikely friendship is forged between the two competitors.

Chand says his portrayal was keeping in mind Guy’s character. “Chaitanya is competing against him and what attracts Guy to him to form a bond is Chaitanya’s confidence,” says the actor who was selected after an audition.

But extra care was taken while shooting of the film, which is not allowed for theatrical viewing for under 17-year-olds without parental guidance due to the use of obscenities. Black lines ran over the censored portions in the script that was handed to him. Chand’s parents, both IT professionals, however, were initially apprehensive about having their eight-year-old act in such a film, but after Bateman shared and discussed the script with them, they came around. “They took me to watch the film eventually,” says Chand.

While the response to Bad Words, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, has brought him under the spotlight, Chand has been part of several prestigious projects. The actor made his debut at the age of six after a casting agent spotted him playing baseball. That chance meeting bagged him the role of Adam Sandler’s adopted son in Jack & Jill (2011). “Adam’s amazing and extremely funny, he would keep joking before the shots and I’d start giving a take laughing. I picked up ways to make people laugh from Adam,”
says Chand.

After Jack & Jill, he was part of an episode of the television series Homeland (2011) and also did a small role in Lone Survivor (2013) alongside Mark Wahlberg. Now, he has two new projects lined up. There’s The Hundred-Foot Journey Lasse Hallström about an Indian chef who moves to France to open a restaurant and faces competition from a French eatery. The film, which also stars Om Puri, Juhi Chawla and Helen Mirren, will see Chand play the chef in his early years. The other is an animation film by Disney where he will lend voice to a character.

Chand admits that he doesn’t always entirely understand his roles when he reads the script and his parents and the director often explain it to him. “In fact, I didn’t really know what was going on when I first started acting, I was all of six then. Now, I like to read my part, memorise the lines and then come up with facial expressions to match the emotions in the scene.”

dipti.nagpaul@expressindia.com