How different is a struggling actor in the world of Bollywood? Casting director Nandini Shrikent, of such films like Don, Rock On!! and Wake Up Sid, talks about portfolio pictures dumped in the binu00a0

The first film I ever cast was Farhan Akhtar's Lakshya. I did the casting on my own, but I got a lot of guidance from Zoya (Akhtar). It was exciting. I knew only the film stars, so in the process, I discovered who the other actors were in Mumbai. For a couple of months, I even auditioned without a script, so they used to come in and do their own pieces.

"There was this guy who came in and cried out, 'Main Jassi hoon!!! I am a drug addict!' He did this whole solo piece, crawling about on the floor. I didn't know what to dou00a0 I had to be all straight-faced.

"I remember my first job vividly. Because Lakshya was a war film, we auditioned a huge section of actors and then the TV boom happened and bam! They all became really famous. That felt nice, because I remember actors like Hiten Tejwani and Rajeev Khandelwal who auditioned for Lakshya.

u00a0Nandini Shrikent conducting an audition at the Excel Entertainment officeu00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0 pic/Shadab Khan

Bad reviews

"I've cast about 14-15 films. I did one hit movie which I worked on for seven months, but when a new producer got on board, the director gave the credit to his wife. I also cast for a French film and an American movie this year, but both were shelved because of the recession.

"There are about four-five good casting directors in Bollywood; the rest are 'coordinators' who operate as agents and take a cut from the actor if he's hired for the part.u00a0

"During an audition, we film the actors and the director goes through our DVD of short-listed people for final approval. Sometimes, I'm shocked at the director's choice and wonder how he could see the person in that part. When I read reviews where they say that an actor was completely wrong for a part, it's horrible and I feel like hiding under the bed. I keep praying that no one reads that review, but the directors are quite sweet about it.