The Big Picture

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff sits down with the team behind
A Nice Indian Boy
at SXSW 2024.
Karan Soni, Sunita Mani, Zarna Garg, and director Roshan Sethi discuss their experience bringing the story of “a gay Indian man who both dreams of – and fears – the big Indian wedding” to the big screen.
Soni leads as Naveen, a doctor who meets and quickly falls in love with Jonathan Groff’s Jay Kurundkar, a white man adopted by two Indian parents.

As director Roshan Sethi notes in his director’s statement, A Nice Indian Boy is a personal film. But, when we sat down for an interview at SXSW 2024 for the movie’s world premiere, I didn’t realize just how personal the production was both on screen and behind the scenes.

Karan Soni leads the film as Naveen Gavaskar, a doctor who’s surprised when he meets and quickly falls in love with Jonathan Groff’s character, Jay Kurundkar, a white man adopted by two Indian parents. Given his parents (Zarna Garg and Harish Patel) are quite traditional, Naveen does everything he can to avoid telling them about Jay. However, eventually they hit the point when it becomes a must in order for Naveen and Jay to move forward in their relationship.

While in Austin celebrating A Nice Indian boy’s big debut, Sethi, Soni, Garg and Sunita Mani who plays Naveen’s sister, Arundhathi, all visited the Collider interview studio to offer a glimpse into the making of the film.

Six Years After Coming Out, Roshan Sethi Is at SXSW With a Gay Rom-Com
Image via SXSW

As someone who often knows little to nothing about filmmakers’ personal lives, our first topic of conversation was quite on brand. I asked Soni and Sethi to tell me how they met and what they saw in each other that signaled they’d be ideal creative partners. Soni laughed and noted, “We met on Raya.”

Soni and Sethi aren’t just creative partners. They’re romantic partners as well. Sethi continued:

“It used to be you can meet a romantic partner on Raya or you can just meet friends and business acquaintances, but we met as romantic partners, and I had just come out.
Literally, six years ago, I was closeted, which is crazy to think here I am with a gay movie now.
But six years ago, I was closeted, and I came out and six months later joined Raya and immediately met Karan and that was it.”

Not only did Sethi make great personal strides in those six years, but now he delivers a film that will undoubtedly strike a chord with many, possibly even representing a viewer’s truth on screen in a way they don’t often see.

Soni continued by explaining how the duo got from Raya to A Nice Indian Boy:

“In 2020 he was finishing up his fellowship and the pandemic was happening, and we had never really worked together or talked about it before. Then he sort of was like, ‘What are we gonna do for the rest of this year?’ And so he had the idea that we write a script and try to just film it on our phone. We literally were like, ‘Maybe we’ll just film it on our phones, we’ll do something,’ and that ended up becoming 7 Days. We made that in September of 2020, and then were looking to do something together again, and then this kind of came through with the producer, Charlie [McSpadden], who was like, ‘We’re doing this movie.’ We were like,
‘This might be
the
perfect movie to make together. [Laughs] It’s very crazy.
”

Zarna Garg on the Key to a Good Filmmaking Experience: “You Must Have a Good Director”
Image via Collider

2:07 Related ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Is Full of Kevin Feige Jokes, Says Karan Soni [Exclusive] Soni also teases how the Ryan Reynolds film is taking advantage of its place in the MCU to create something special.

From the viewer perspective, A Nice Indian Boy truly does feel like the perfect movie for Sethi and Soni. Every single frame of the film is brimming with heart and authenticity, resulting in an irresistibly charming and deeply moving rom-com.

Every actor and member of the crew delivers big, but the group was quick to sing Sethi’s praises as their leader on set. Soni began:

“
Roshan is very competent, as they will tell you, and very good at anything he does
, and he was like that on 7 Days, too. He had never directed before and we made that movie in eight days. It was this crazy thing and he pulled it off. But on this one, because I wasn’t on the Disney movie and that was a much bigger movie and this was a bigger movie, the first day of this I was like, ‘Oh, he is doing everything …’ We worked less than 10-hour days and shot this movie in not that many days, but going into it, I was like, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be a long thing,’ and it was so easy. We were all having a good time and had a social life, and it was great.”

There’s no better atmosphere to have on set for an artist at any stage of their career, but especially for a first-timer like Zarna Garg. Given A Nice Indian Boy marks her first time acting in a feature film, I asked her for the biggest misconception she had about what it takes to make a movie. Here’s what she said:

“Oh, no misconception at all. I thought only a doctor can handle it. It is very complicated. It is very complicated and, exactly, it worked out how I said, because we have not just a regular doctor, like super doctor in charge, everything worked out. This is what everybody should be aspiring to do, go to medical school, make a movie.”

When asked for a tip she’d give to other individuals about to make their first film, she continued with great sincerity:

“
You must have a good director. You must. That is key.
If the director is good, 99% of things will work out. Because I really think that the planning stages of the movie probably were critical to the successful execution of the whole thing.”

Sunita Mani on ‘A Nice Indian Boy’: “It Was One of the Gayest Sets I’ve Ever Been On”

Image via Collider

Soni further emphasized, “[Roshan] always says this too, the prep phase is where the movie is really made, and then when we were shooting, it was like all the work had been done and we just got to have fun.”

That prep phase is also key to keeping a production on schedule, something Garg was mighty impressed with on this set.

“Day one, not having ever set foot on a set, when they give you the papers, I don’t even know what they’re called — every day, the papers that come — and then it says eight o’clock, six o’clock. In my non-movie world, I’m like, ‘None of this is actually gonna happen at eight o’clock or six o’clock,’ and then it did on the set! Everything happened exactly as it was supposed to happen.”

Mani jumped in to celebrate two other especially wonderful qualities of the A Nice Indian Boy set that contributed to a positive working environment and experience making the film:

“
It still feels like an exception to work on a mostly South Asian film.
On and off set it just creates such a freedom I didn’t even know I could tap into. I love my career, but it is still really cool to feel so communal on set. It always feels that way, and then there’s this extra layer. I hope to keep building on that.
It was one of the gayest sets I’ve ever been on, too. It is a blessing. It was so familial and so wonderful and so cared for.
You really feel everyone’s presence, which is very dignified and fun.”

Looking for more from Sethi, Soni, Mani, and Garg about their experience making A Nice Indian Boy? You can find just that in our full SXSW 2024 interview at the top of this article.

A Nice Indian Boy (2024) When Naveen brings his fiance Jay home to meet his family, his traditional Indian parents must contend with accepting his white partner and helping them plan the most fabulous same sex Indian wedding the Bay Area has ever seen.Release Date March 12, 2024 Director Roshan Sethi Cast Jonathan Groff , Karan Soni , Sachin Sahel , Dhirenda , Pete Graham , Sean Amsing , Peter S. Kim , James Cousineau Runtime 96 Minutes Main Genre Comedy