Hollywood ranks South Asians for first time

Top rankers, Dev Patel and Freida Pinto

LOS ANGELES: In its first survey of South Asian star power in the company’s 20 year history, The Ulmer Scale announced that Dev Patel, star of the Oscar- winning feature Slumdog Millionaire, tops its list of South Asia’s most bankable stars worldwide, as published in the company’s just-released Actors Hot List.

Nineteen-year-old Patel, who made his movie debut in Danny Boyle’s hit film, scored 30 out of a possible 100 points in studio-level, high-budget movies, with a rank of 245 out of a total pool of 1,402 actors worldwide in the Los Angeles database company’s 2009-10 survey of film industry professionals worldwide. Second on the list was the American actor-turned-politico Kal Penn, best known as the star of the “Harold and Kumar” slacker comedies and who is of Gujarati Indian descent, with a score of 25.

To understand the rating, Only two actors – Will Smith and Johnny Depp – managed to climb onto The Ulmer Scale’s renowned A+ list, scoring 96 and 95 points, respectively, out of a possible 100 in studio high-budget movies.  Tom Cruise, who had crowned the A+ list for nearly two decades, saw his ranking tank to 11th place in high-budget movies with 80 points – down 18 points from his 2007 tally and a full 20-point drop from his career high of scoring perfect 100’s during the mid 90s.

Ulmer explained most of the time he uses sales agents, buyers and sellers and financiers and producers, some studio people to find these numbers. “Most of these are people I had relationships with when I was with the Hollywood Reporter or Premier or wherever I was.” I want the people down in the trenches to negotiating the deals.  And the question is how are these people perceived as actors when these deals are made.  So very much at human perception. 

From a Bollywood perspective can be put in perspective based on Bollywood standards where stars like Sharukh Khan and Salman Khan are not listed because they don't represent the US, Europe, Australian English language market.  Bollywood, though has more viewers in India, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and America, but are non-English language films.  Nearly 90 percent of the films viewed in India for example are not English language films. 

Another Slumdog newcomer, Freida Pinto, earned the South Asian Hot List’s no. 3 with a tally of 18 bankability points.  And screen beauty Aishwarya Rai, hailed by the Indian press as one of the world’s most beautiful women, assumed the number 7 spot with a score of 10.

“Both Patel and Pinto showed impressive scores for complete newcomers to feature films, proving that Bollywood and Indian actors are no longer slumdogs in Hollywood,” said Ulmer, who began measuring bankability in 1997 as international editor of The Hollywood Reporter. “Their scores may seem low compared with Hollywood’s A-list talent, which only shows how underutilized India’s and Bollywood’s film talent has been in Hollywood.  But that’s all changing now, and I expect these actors to rise rapidly in future surveys as they movie into more high-budget, English-language productions with global appeal.”  

Here is the complete list of The Ulmer Scale’s Top 10 South Asian stars:

1.  Dev Patel 30
2.  Kal Penn 25
3.  Freida Pinto 18
4.  Naveen Andrews 15
5.  Anil Kapoor 12
6.  Om Puri 11
7.  Aishwarya Rai 10
8.  Shabana Azmi   9
9.  Sendhil Ramamurthy   8
10.  Sarita Choudhury   6