It is not often that I get to interview the main character of a movie like The Hundred Foot Journey. Manish Dayal was a delight to talk to and take pictures with. Normal, grounded, and down to earth are just a few words to describe him. Totally funny is another. We spent a good chunk of this interview laughing.

Our first question for Manish was if he cooked since it is such a part of Hundred Foot Journey.

I’ve been getting that question a lot lately. What I would say is no. I've definitely learned a lot about cooking. In the movie, it wasn’t so much about learning how to cook but
more just how to understand kitchen culture. We had to understand how to chop and where to stand and how to move and how to make sure that all of the dishes were effectively made. I think that was sort of the challenge in terms of learning kitchen etiquette and stuff like that for the film.

We then asked how he decided to do The Hundred Foot Journey.

It was a really, really funny story actually. I went in for a voiceover audition for an animated feature that DreamWorks is doing. One of people who first sort of spotted me was Leslie Feldman. She's the casting executive over at DreamWorks, and we ended up having this great conversation the whole time we were in this audition, not auditioning just talking. Then that night I get a phone call asking if I’d come back in and read for a different project. They wouldn’t tell me the name or anything about it. I did, of course. Then, I found out Steven Spielberg was involved. He's like a childhood hero of mine. I ended up reading a scene I think 38 times; I must've read it trying it every different way you can imagine. Then those tapes went to Steven and Oprah. Then I went in for more meetings, an interview, and then more meetings over the course of four and a half months. Then I met Lasse Hallström in New York who ultimately signed off. Then I got a phone call the next day saying that Steven wants to hire you. It was a long, long crazy amazing entertaining experience.

When you work on a film with so much food, you are going to eat it. We did ask if he gained a few pounds . . . or ten.

It did, yes. I lost a bit of weight for the India portion (of the film). I wanted to make sure that he had sort of a youthful presence, an innocence presence, one void of any sort of complications at that point in the movie.

Helen Mirren is also in this film (she is awesome). Of course, we asked what it was like to work with her.

First I should tell you that she's hilarious, and she has a very, very crass sense of humor. I think that's something we had a lot in common, so we ended up just laughing all the time. She was telling me stories about her life and how she got started in this business. It was good to learn from her. When we were working, I could see how she prepares and what her process was like. That was also really cool. It was an amazing experience. She also told me something that I won't forget which was when you pick movies to do, you should just pick them based on how much fun you're going to have. That was really good advice.

He also got to meet Oprah!

I did meet Oprah. Yes, she's really amazing. She's all the things that you know about her; she's that much more incredible. She's, as you know, very giving and generous. The most interesting thing about her is how generous she is with her knowledge and her knowledge of the world. I did get to spend some time with her. It’s clear to me of why she's connected to this story. This is a story about a displaced family that has to find their way in this new place and overcome all these obstacles culturally and racially in every way. It’s a real immigrant story. I think that's why she connected to it. These are the stories that she wants to tell.

Our next question was about the surprises in food culture and what he hopes audiences will take from this film.

I went into it thinking that the French culture and the Indian culture are completely different. There's nothing about these two cultures that are similar until I started working on the movie and living with these people who were making the movie. I realized they're actually distinctly similar unlike any other culture in the world because of their appreciation for food. They both have this sort of like razor sharp appreciation for it that I don't think any other culture has that I’ve been a part of. It’s sort of perfect. The level of respect you have for the chef; it’s really insane. Then in an Indian kitchen, it’s not like that at all. It’s about however you're going to get this thing cooked and how are we gonna make it happen. Both, you know, yield great tasting food, but the cultures in these kitchens is so different. That's one of the most interesting things I learned, but they still have the same sort of razor sharp appreciation for cooking and food. It’s just done in a very different way.

There is some definite difference between movie and tv.

Most of my experience is in TV. I’d say that the coolest thing about working on a movie like this is that I really got to evolve (aff) this character with the help of Lasse of course and really understand where he is in the beginning of the movie as a young man with very few responsibilities with not much going on except this sort of love or interest in cooking to this grown man in Paris who’s over the span of many years who has these huge conflicts and these really major responsibilities and so much on his shoulders.

I think that's what makes it very different – that you can really experience that, work through it, figure out how this person changes, evolves mentally, physically, verbally, everything. You don't get to do on TV as much. In this movie, I got to really sort of see this young man from a boy to a man and how that really evolves.

He also read the book before filming the movie.

I read it before. I read it twice before. I always had it under my arm when I was shooting. Lasse’s directing style is the best, because his vision’s always moving. It’s evolving. Things change. Lines get added. Lines get cut. It’s just like this thing that moves all the time. I wanted to have the book, because sometimes if I was unsure about something that I was doing in the movie I would refer to the book. There was this one line that I remember when I go to the window and I say, “We’re not visitors anymore. If you can't beat them, join them.” It’s a huge turning point for my character, because he's starting to sort of play the game. He has to do that at several points in the movie in order to reach his point of realization. At that point, I knew that something needed to be said. The line that was in the script just didn't make sense. To me, it was not poignant enough. I flipped open the book, and I saw that line — We’re not visitors anymore. It spoke to me in a real way, because that's not exactly what they're trying to achieve. They're trying not to be nomadic anymore. They are trying to settle down. They're trying to find a life for themselves to survive. That line completely said it to me. I went to Lasse and said this is what I want to say. He said do it.

Those are the things that the book brought to me.

You could tell his love for his mom. She hadn't seen the movie yet when we did this interview, so we asked what foods reminded him of home (aff).

Nobody can make a grilled cheese sandwich like my mother. It’s this one thing. She didn't do it often growing up, but I remember when she did it it was always late at night for me and my siblings. If we were hungry, she would make grilled cheese sandwiches, and she makes them perfectly. It is something that she does that I really sort of love. Indian-wise, she makes, uh, rice and daal, which is a very simple thing but everybody makes it differently. Depending on where you're from in India and where your family originates, daal is a uniform dish, but everybody cooks it differently. Where I’m from (which is also where the Hagi’s are also), they put sugar in it. To me, daal should be sweet, but to a north Indian, it shouldn’t be. For us, it’s also runnier. In the north, it’s thicker. It just depends. I’m actually going home (aff) tonight. I haven't been home in a while, so hopefully she’ll have it when I’m home.

Of course, there was a lot of eating on set. Manish did have a favorite dish though.

The beef bourguignon. That was good. I killed it. I ate so much of it that day. I remember it was a scene that I was shooting before lunch broke. Afterwards, I couldn’t even eat lunch I ate so much of it. It was really good.

We asked if he was surprised by anything.

Frog legs. It was Helen that actually gave me a frog leg. She ordered them for lunch one day. I was like what is it? Why waste your time? She was like try one, so I tried it, and it was actually pretty good. That was one of the stranger things that I ate.

It taste like chicken, but it’s a lot of work. You might as well just eat chicken.

There is a message he hopes you all walk with.

I hope people feel that in order to achieve something great you have to go after life’s uncertainty. I think that is what this movie is about. It’s about going into the unknown and not knowing whats going to happen after life’s uncertainty and committing yourself to a higher purpose.

That's what I think this movie’s about. For everyone in the movie, not just my character. It’s that way for Om Puri who when he arrives in France. Helen Mirren really trying to sort of do away with years and years of culture and experience that she knows. She's hardened to it and then sort of loosening that up. That's tough, so I think everyone has a little bit of a journey. My character really does go after something that is difficult and challenging and not knowing what the result. That is real courage in my opinion.

The Hundred Foot Journey is amazing, because Manish is in it. He was amazing in his role and was great to talk to.

Did you learn anything from my interview? Anything we should have asked him? Will you be seeing The Hundred Foot Journey?