Comic reveals how romcom was whitewashed

Omid Djalili has revealed he was cut from Notting Hill for being ‘too brown’.

The Anglo-Iranian comedian can be fleetingly seen in Richard Curtis’s 1999 romcom as the cafe owner who gives Hugh Grant the orange juice he spills over Julia Roberts.

However, he has now explained that he originally had lines – but they were left on the cutting room floor at the behest of Hollywood bigwigs.

‘Notting Hill was a film where they tried to show the diversity of the area,’ he told Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast. ‘Then the American producers said, "We want this to be more white." So they got rid of everyone [of colour].

‘I had some lines that were taken out, so it looks like I’m an extra… the only ethnic minority who stayed in the movie, along with Sanjeev Bhaskar. He had a couple of lines but yes, they whitewashed the film. Fortunately, I’m not bitter about it.’

On sensing the audience’s incredulity over a movie that has long been accused of not reflecting the West London district’s diversity, Djalili added: ‘It’s true, they thought it wasn’t white enough.’

The comic also told Herring that he was cut out of the 2008 Mike Myers flop The Love Guru after Sir Ben Kingsley stole a bit of physical comedy he improvised.

‘But I played Guru Sacchabignobba, which required me to put two cucumbers into a nappy I was wearing. All I had to do was to urinate into a pot, shake, and then pretend I’m celebrating something. So I did… this kind of fist pump where the cucumbers went up as my hand went across. And it got such a big laugh.

‘Then Sir Ben Kingsley came along, and then he just did everything I did. And I said, "What’s he doing?" And [a crew member] goes, "He’s stealing your shit; he’s totally stealing your shit."

‘So I said, "You might as well just let him do it. "Yeah, we’re gonna let him do it", "So you’ll probably cut me out of the film?", "Yeah, we’re gonna cut you out."

‘But it worked out well because it’s not a brilliant film.’

Djalili also recalled an amusing email exchange he had with Colin Firth long before they worked together on Mamma Mia 2.

‘He sent me an email out of the blue saying, "Dear Omid, I just thought you should know I had a dream about you. And you were a lap dancer. Love, Colin."

‘So I wrote back, "How funny, Colin, I had the same dream and your cheque bounced." Then he wrote, "Because the lap dance was wholly unsatisfactory.".’

Djalili said that when they did finally meet on set, ‘we didn’t even mention this thing’.

• Listen to Richard Herring's Leicester Square Podcast here.

Published: 8 Sep 2022