Did working with child actors pose any particular challenges?
The kids were great – and during the shoot they just continued to get better and better. They seemed to quickly grasp what was and wasn’t working and continued to grow throughout the shoot. Because the kids couldn’t read – they couldn’t really prepare scenes in advance – so we would get to a location and then have to rehearse on the spot until they got it – then we would shoot. One other added complication was the language issue. Neither of the two main kids spoke English – so it was difficult to convey detailed direction quickly – and it could easily get translated in the wrong way. More challenging was the fact that the film was being shot in Hindi – which wasn’t the first language of either kid. So they were being directed in a language they didn’t understand and having to shoot complicated dialogue scenes in a language that wasn’t their first language. Nana Patekar is a major star in India, did you know of his work prior to working with him on The Pool? How was your experience in w
