Bright future ahead for Indian-origin TV actors

The next few years may prove a boon for Indian-origin actors as a number of them are being roped in to play important roles in American movies and daily soaps.

Briton-Indian actor Naomi Scott, American-Indian actor and producer Kal Penn and comedian Aziz Ansari are all being roped in to play roles in various upcoming films scheduled for release in 2016 or 2017, nwasianweekly.com reported on Friday.

While Scott, who was recently seen in the dramas ‘The Martian’ and ‘The 33’, has signed a deal to play the character of Pink Ranger in the new edition of the movie ‘Power Rangers’, Penn is busy creating a new sitcom titled ‘Fair and Balance’.

Penn featured in cult comedy series ‘Harold and Kumar’. He has taken up many guest and starring roles on numerous television shows.

According to the report, the sitcom is under development and details will be released in December.

Apart from these, the development of two new sitcoms featuring storylines with prominent Indian American characters was announced recently.

A family comedy named ‘I Love Lakshmi’ is in the works. The project is co-written by Doug Prochilo and is inspired by Prochilo's real life experiences marrying into an Indian family. Prochilo is white and married to Universal TV President Bela Bajaria who is Indian-American.

Another Indian American-themed comedy, ‘Pre-Madonna’ is also under development and is written by filmmaker Nisha Ganatra.

The show is inspired by her adolescence. Ganatra is best known for having directed three of the 10 episodes of the American television show ‘Transparent’.

Lastly, ‘Master of None’, a 10-episode comedy show running in the US, has actor Aziz Ansari in an important role. Ansari also co-created and produced this series.