Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with Dileep Rao. You might know him from his lead role in Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell, and soon you will know him from a little film from James Cameron called Avatar. Dileep is a fascinating individual whose brief acting career has been amazing to say the least. Avatar was his motion picture debut, after that he was cast in one of the lead roles in Sam Raimi’s much anticipated return to horror Drag Me to Hell. As if things couldn’t get any more insane Dileep then went on to work on Christopher Nolan’s (The Dark Knight) newest film Inception, which comes out next summer.
If you’re starting to think Dileep is lucky, did I also mention he had one of the highest single day totals on Jeopardy as well? The conversation ran a bit long, but since it was such a great interview I am going to break it up into two parts. The first about Avatar and the second covering Drag Me to Hell and Inception. I really hope you enjoy this interview, because I really enjoyed chatting with Dileep. He was a great guy with a lot of very interesting things to say and I wish him the best of luck in the future. So enjoy part one, I will be posting part two next week!
– You started out your adult life as a pre-med student at UC San Diego and had serious intentions of becoming a surgeon, your mom is a physicist and your dad is an engineer and your sister is currently finishing her PhD in economics at MIT, what inspired you to kind of go against the grain and put med-school on hold and become an actor?
Well I think part of that is the path of the scientist for me, particularly. As I was playing with acting and learning the craft of it, it came to a process where I was able to experience my life in a very truthful way in front of other people, and that is from the theater. When you’re performing in the theater you have an experience with an audience, where you’re telling a story and you’re trying to approach human truth to varying degrees of competence. When you start to touch on that feeling a little bit and you have that experience with a group of people, an audience together; that is a pretty rare and cool thing. Once I had the full experience of that and I was expressing myself in a very personal way, it felt like a no-brainer that was what I wanted to do with my life.
-What inspired you to transition from theater to film?
Well you know I love movies, and I always thought that movies were probably for people who were much more glamorous and more interesting than I was. I was committed to the theater, I love the theater, I was in drama school and I still am, and I still think the theater is the root source of my work. I came to LA because I wanted to write films, and also be an actor and work in TV and movies, but you know I was working in theater and going around the country as a theater actor and I thought I would stay a theater actor. I auditioned for a lot of things, but you know low and behold Jim Cameron wanted me in his movie and that changed things pretty quickly for me. Right then and there you start making movies at the highest level possible, and it really cut the whole intermediary process right out.
-So lets start with Avatar, I know you actually shot that one before Drag Me to Hell, how did you happen to land that role?
Well I had been auditioning in LA for TV and film for a long time; I tested for four television series where I would be a series regular. But I never got a single one of them. I auditioned for a ton of little TV parts and I got one small one, meanwhile I was doing theater all over the country. So I heard about an audition and I asked if my agency could get me in there, I got in and apparently they were looking for a very specific thing when they were looking for this character, they saw a lot of people.
So I did an audition and gave it my all, but I also had a sense that this is such a shot in the dark at something so enormous. I thought I am just going to just do it without any second-guessing of myself and just be as honest as I can be, and do my work as hard as I can, and just do it. It was a very unusual circumstance to get a movie like this, because they didn’t give you any material ahead of time. You gotta go there sign all the NDAs which were very numerous, copious and comprehensive and they cover everything about the movie. Then you get inside and get 20 minutes to prepare and then you walk in for your audition.  So in some ways it’s like a gift, because there isn’t so much on you; because you’re like I just got it so I will try to do the most honest read I can, and I think that helped me. I think Jim saw something in me, I think all my scientific training and background helped me because the character I am playing is definitely scientifically inclined. So I was really able to lend some authenticity, to make it very casual and real that helped a little bit. Jim just really liked what I did and thank God he did, you know?
-What were your feelings on landing a role in James Cameron’s first feature film in 12 years, and what could possibly be after all the dust has settled one of the most expensive films of all time?
When I first got that job I screamed, I just kinda ran inside of the class I was in at the time and screamed, because I couldn’t believe I was going to be in a Jim Cameron movie. I have always loved Jim Cameron’s movies regardless of the fact that I am in one now. I think he is so talented and so gifted; he is such a technical innovator and a brilliant filmmaker.  I think in our age it’s real easy for people to go “Well, I kinda like that person’s movies or I kinda don’t like them” everyone has an opinion on everything. But to understand to some level what Jim Cameron is capable of, and filmmakers of his caliber are capable of it’s kinda beyond opinion, they are just great.  They know more about how films are made and they have innovated the technical medium of filmmaking, which film is largely a technical medium.
I mean film is all about these illusions of creating reality on screen, which is a very technical, precise art. His understanding of that is so total. When you’re an actor and you’re laboring in obscurity, without even thinking you will work with an artist of that fame, renown and talent you’re kind of like in your house playing roulette on a table you made and hoping that someone in the universe is taking the other side of that bet. So when I got that phone call, it was like someone said, “you were right to bet on yourself, here is the 64 to 1 payoff on that times a million.”
At that particular moment I had no idea what I was going to do, I have my first film and I am just going to jump on the ride. Obviously when you go on an adventure with Jim Cameron you know you’re going to go conquer the very edge of what is possible.

-When you got to the set it had to be a much different experience than Drag Me to Hell was for you – very non-traditional film making because Cameron is really trying to reinvent things, could you tell us a bit about the process?
Well let me say this first, the only way I knew it was much different is because I made Drag Me to Hell second. My first movie was Avatar; I was interested in how films technically were made, I mean you have the camera, you shoot the people, you set and cut, you roll sound and all that stuff. Everything was invariably different on this movie in terms of when we sped sound, when we would speed the camera, which was recording in a truck outside the sound stage.
When you’re in the company of the artisans and the craftspeople who are working on a movie like this, which is literally thousands of people who are the highest trained, most technical cutting edge artists of their particular niche, every day all that stuff flies by you in the first couple of hours. Then you’re a soldier and you’re in the trenches doing your work with the generals, you’re doing what you’re asked to do you, bring your part to it, because it’s as important as anything. Every single day, there is someone saying “you may not know this but what we did today, this is a motion picture first, that’s just a piece of history that happened today.”
We were starting to do these things routinely, but that is only because it has to become a routine to become artistic, you have to be able to new things repeatedly, with the same emphasis, so you can change the artistic notions of it. Otherwise if it were too prototypic you wouldn’t be able to get the art in. So it’s simultaneously a cutting edge, prototype, super technical, break-through film, but it is also an artistic film and a vision of an singularly smart and brilliant artist.
I didn’t know how different it was till I went to work on Drag Me to Hell, and that was a much more traditionally shot film on purpose, you know? Sam obviously shoots the same kinds of pictures, but on that particular movie he wanted to scale it down so it was coming back to his roots and back to the filmmaking that inspires him. So I think for Drag Me to Hell he was trying to put forth a filmmaking experience that would hearken back to his early experiments in film and to rekindle some of that deep connection he has to the medium.
-It’s funny you mention the fact that all these people were at the top of their respected fields, I have read a lot about how all the technology used in this film was in development over the last five years just for Avatar, and now that the film is out these techniques; that they have been laboring over all these years will finally see the light of day and begin to influence films from here on out. 
That is absolutely right. Whatever the outcome of the success of the film turns out to be, a tremendous amount of what was developed before we shot it, while we shot it, during the shoot, and in post; all that stuff developed for Avatar is going to affect the way films are going to be shot for the next five to ten years. There are so many different departments that have been totally revolutionized by the kind of work they have done for this film just in terms of how special effects are used, how digital is used, the interaction of live action and CGI characters, that are motion capture based all that stuff is all brand new.
Its like a quantum leap in what we had before with motion capture in terms of using motion capture characters in live action scenarios where the interactions are perfectly seamless. Then when they are upconverted digitally and then when we come back we see the relative reality of the CGI and the non-CGI it’s truly breathtaking and mind-blowing. The kinds of work, the kinds of cutting edge amount of effort that they have put forth to push this thing through it is one for the ages I think.
-We read a lot of hearsay on working with James Cameron, what’s it really like?
Ah man, it’s a dream. I don’t know what everyone’s interest is in knowing what that would be like, but for me I can only speak from my perspective and that is I only want to work with the best and he is the best. The first director I ever worked with is one of the greatest directors out there making movies. The knowledge of what he is doing is so complete and total that he can explain to you in a quick short hand exactly what is going to happen. For me as an actor that helps me a lot, so that I am able to give the best performance I can.
He’s also a really nice person. He works very, very hard, and I have never seen anyone put the hours in that he does.  He is on there for every shot and he shoots it all himself. He operates the cameras, his vision is complete and total and he is uncompromising. In art, that is probably the most important quality… seeing it through to the end. It’s pretty easy for things to get away, especially with the millions of details and thousands of decisions that have to be made on a film like this. It would be pretty easy for someone to be just like, “I don’t know, I just did what I could” and you get some movies that are a little mushy in the middle, where the vision wasn’t totally clear. I think with Jim you could put your hands and your trust in one of the strongest most dedicated unwielding artists around and that is something you can put yourself up against. I consider him a friend, I had a great time working and joking around with him.
If you really want to know what the whole thing is about, it’s the art. It takes him time to do what he does because it is so meticulous and painstaking, his attention to detail is legendary and its awesome to see it in effect, you feel proud to be part of it and it raises your standards. It makes you push yourself to that level because you look at the man and you’re like, “if you’re working that hard then I am going to match that in everything I do.”
It was a really important lesson for me in filmmaking, because filmmaking is different than theater, you’re making it during the arduousness, during the journey, during the battle while you’re fighting the war. In theater you’re fighting the war in the rehearsal and then you live it in front of the audience, its sort of is the document that parishes in front of the audience. With film your making the document for forever during the battle so you have to know that the person in charge is of that caliber, my insane great fortune is that I have only worked with people who are like that.
-I know you’re probably under a bunch of non-disclosure agreements and what-not about the film but you could you tell us a bit about your role without revealing too much, I actually got to see the Avatar day preview and I recognized you as one of the scientists in the scene where they first put Jake into the Avatar body that was one of the full scenes shown to the public. 
I can say I am a scientist in the picture, I help Jake learn how to use the system he will be using to enter Pandora’s world in his Avatar. That is about what I can say. I can also say there is obviously a conflict in the film and I am on one side of it. The thing that is interesting about the NDAs is I am a fan so I always want to know as much as anyone will say, but I have to say now that I am an insider the reason why they are there is not just to have control over the elements that they have created, but also because the more naked you can go in, the more sight unseen you see these pictures; the better your experience will be. I just think that’s fundamentally that is one of the strengths of those kinds of ignorances, its that you can’t unknow what you know. That’s why its there, I’ll just leave it at that.
-I keep telling people who haven’t seen the footage in 3D and in IMAX that seeing a trailer on your television just doesn’t do the footage justice, I mean I really think its something you have to see to believe, the aliens and even the look of the 3D in this film is used in ways we haven’t seen before, have you seen the footage yourself and have any thoughts?
Yeah I have seen a lot of it; and when you see it under the proper auspices, the way you will see in the theater in 3D, digitally projected, and screened in the proper format it’s truly breathtaking. You’re right, it is impossible to describe in 3D because it’s like you’re trying to broadcast colors signals on the TV with black-and-white phosphorus.  You can’t appreciate what it looks like because you are not being presented with the actual thing. I think the footage even in 2-D on a computer in HD looks great, but it’s nothing compared to when you see it projected with the 3-D glasses on.
Most people who watch movies have now experienced some version of the new digital 3-D where a lot of it has to do with stuff coming out of the screen at you, and I think the difference is this entire movie is shot from the setup that was designed to be using the depth of the space as much as possible. It’s kind of like a play and the fact that you can see to the back, stuff can move from the field of view from the back to the front without jumping into your lap. I think that has ramifications and storytelling, how characters move, how you pay attention to the frame, what the frame expands to be, because the frame now becomes the volume, the frame is now the theater and goes all the way to the back and that has real implications with your story and your characters. I remember Jim saying he would love to shot a drama in 3-D, and I think it’s fascinating you could shoot something like Citizen Kane or the Godfather or something in a 3-D setup so you would have that richness you know. It’s obviously change, and change is always weird for people, but I think it’s going to be predominant for these kinds of movies these effects movies it’s going to be the standard. I can’t wait for people to see it, so they could see what we’ve been working on, and what the vision was behind Avatar.
-My final Avatar question, it’s got to be pretty surreal James Cameron is saying Avatar is his Star Wars, and even if Avatar doesn’t live up to expectations of the public and fails at the box office it will still live on for generations because it was directed by James Cameron. How does it feel to be part of that legacy of characters and the Avatar universe? 
Well, you know that’s a much more interesting question when you’re not in it. When you’re in it, it doesn’t really matter that much. To me, I mean it’s great, of course you know you get the action figures, and stuff, and that’s rad. The communal nature of all of us who were together, we can all look at each other in the eyen and know we went to New Zealand, and some of us who have been here working on the motion capture longer than that, and how much we all gave to this project especially James himself. That is the fraternity that will always bind us together.  To me the memory of the movie is the making of the movie, and how much we put into every frame of it that probably means more to me than all the other stuff.
You know with the comparisons to Star Wars, anything compared to Star Wars is sort of ridiculous because Star Wars really started the era of hundred million dollar expectations, blockbusters. Blockbusters that literally had lines that went around the block of people waiting to get in. You know those movies and events aren’t like that anymore because now we have plenty of theaters for people to see all the movies on opening weekend. 50% of the audience will see the movie opening weekend if not more because of the multiplexes now. The experience now is more and more on demand, more and more if you want to see it, based on what you have already seen of it, you will see it.  So Star Wars was a cultural phenomenon and the closest thing we have come to that in our generation is Titanic and The Dark Knight, where people were like “I am going to see that again, and I am taking my friends and my family, because I want to get your reactions on it.” You now in our era that is like multiple screenings sold out, you know that’s what it is for us.  Avatar certainly has the potential to do that, but I don’t look at it as something that should or shouldn’t do that. My hopes are that it will, because it has the potential to and I have expectations that it will to some degree. But like I said, my issue with the role was I was in a James Cameron picture you know and regardless of anything else in the world, I went to the cutting edge of the possibility of film, and I went with one of the great masters and we made a film like Avatar. You know after working with someone like that your own way of working changes, your standards are raised. Me and Jim talked a lot about our favorite filmmakers Stanely Kubrick and you feel like a lot of your aesthetics and the art you make is reinforced.  To me that is what I take from it that I am like Jim in a certain way and part of my aesthetics mesh with his and that is a great source of pride for me and it was a great challenge that I should live up to that.

After Avatar you landed a starring role on Sam Raimi’s much anticipated return to horror, Drag Me to Hell talk about lucky, how did landing that role come about, and were you a fan Raimi’s before you got the role in his film?
OF COURSE! I was a huge fan of Sam’s movies, the very first movie I saw Sam’s was Dark Man, and then my friend was like “Didn’t you know this guy made The Evil Dead?” I was like what is that? And he was like, “you’re an idiot.” We immediately go in his dorm room and he puts on this videotape, I watch this movie and I am completely hypnotized by it. Because the movie is so immediate a film, it is just so sensory overload, and it is such an act of love, you can feel the love that went into that film as grotesque and hilarious as it can be.  It’s a handmade movie and you feel the love of that in that movie especially the first one. My favorite films of Sam’s are A Simple Plan it’s just an amazing, amazing movie and Spiderman 2, which I think is a masterpiece as well. I was always a fan, and it was always a fantasy of mine to work with him.
I always knew he always tends to work with famous actors, you know he is big-time and can get what he wants. When I did the audition I was in New Zealand and Still shooting Avatar I didn’t have to shoot for a couple of days, and I got the audition through the internet. I was going to audition on tape and Fed-Ex it to LA, and there was some delays. There was some scheduling quirks I was able to combat and I was able to audition in person. I ended up auditioning for something else when I came out and when I got out I had like 4 messages on my phone, and I was like, “whoa this is weird.” So I checked them and the very first one was someone just giving me directions to the Fox lot. Then my agents called and said, your just going to meet him there is no audition. So I had already auditioned, because he had seen my tape so we just shook hands and that was it I was in. I gave him my thoughts on the character, and just started going from there. It was a dream experience, I loved working with Sam Raimi, I would do anything to work with him. I think we have a strong understanding of each other and  I look forward to working with him again.
I loved you performance in Drag Me to Hell you really took what could have been just a one dimensional stereotypical character and not only gave him some serious depth but made him the most likable character in the film, what was your inspiration for that performance and was that how it was originally scripted? 
It’s hard to remember that first impression although, I thought he was a cool character in that he didn’t just have to be a font of knowledge and he had this experience with Christine Brown which was more personal. As soon as I get a job like that, it becomes totally assumed in my body, assumed into my person. So I started my research read a lot of books and I started to read about the occult and belief practices. I come from a family of science, so I looked at it as if I were a scientific investigator in these things,  and that kind of phenomena was not so foreign to me. Being a person of cutting edge investigation I think the guy would do it that way, so I just broadened out who he was.
The when I first rehearsed with Allison who was such a great actress, so talented and so immediate and personal in her work, the first thing we rehearsed together I think we kinda had that quick instant chemistry. Like, I am totally going to like working together because I love your acting and that made it more so much more kind of personal character, and a personal relationship instead of being just like, “Here’s your exposition, now do what you have to do.”  So I think that made it easier for me, because me, Sam and Allison all just kind of bonded on the material and in our scenes you can really feel that. It’s a tribute to Sam’s collaborative spirit and his ability to make it feel like that, when it feels like he has his hands in it, more than it feels like he does you know what I mean.

What was it like going from working with a legend in sci-fi such as Cameron and then working with a legend in horror like Sam Raimi and then going straight to Christopher Nolan’s first film since the Dark Knight?  For such a short film career you have had a pretty unbelievable one.
You know, yeah it’s totally crazy and I don’t take any credit for it, I was just fortunate that the stars were able to line up for me, and I was able to work with some of the best people around. Every single time, I feel like I was figuratively struck by lightning, because it’s so out of the blue usually and I am auditioning for stuff that I don’t get or like as much. Then with the Christopher Nolan thing, I knew he was going to make another movie, I had no idea what it was about and I just wanted to be seen. Some things just lined up where certain people knew certain people, and there was a role that was right for me. He asked me to audition and I flew back from New York City where I was reading a film for the Sundance Festival. I was supposed to go to Sundance for another director, Ritesh Batra, to workshop a film. I hoped on a plane flew back to LA, auditioned once, auditioned twice and I got this phone call when I got back from Cannes with Drag Me, and they were like we want you to start work, and your in. I screamed, like I do every time I get a job, it’s such a blessing, it’s such an incredible honor to be a part of these works of art by these great artists.
Chris is my generation; he is a younger director so there is that incredible precocity of the fact that he has reached that height that Jim has at his age, he has done the same thing. But your there for his rise, he has only made like five or six films, of which I would put three or more at the top of the decade. He has a lot of Cameron and Kubrick in him as well, in terms of his totality of understanding of how movies are made; comprehensively because he made them at such a young age. He also has an aesthetic that is really cool to me because he really likes to do a lot of things in camera. So we are doing a lot of stunt stuff and there is a lot of things I have never done before and it’s really broadened my experience. It was just an honor to work with him, he is a tough director he works hard and makes sure everything works the way it supposed to be. I got the chance to work with some of the greatest actors in my generation and out of my generation, not to mention that cast which is one of the greatest casts I have ever heard of, or been in. It was an honor to be in that picture and I can’t wait for people to see that when it comes out next summer, I think it’s going to blow some minds.
Can you tell us a bit about your role in Christopher Nolan’s Inception or is it too early for that one? I saw the trailer for it and it looked insane to say the least.
I literally can’t say anything. Because I respect him I think we should leave it to him to let the film reveal itself.
So what’s next? Sky is the limit!
Well yes and no, yes well I have more opportunities now, then I have had before. But at the same time it’s funny because the stuff in front of you isn’t always the stuff you want to do. It’s about being grateful and giving back to people who have given me so much. I can’t wait to go out and celebrate the opening of Avatar with Jim and all the other actors and to see how the picture came out. I’ll play it by ear, I don’t know yet actually to be honest with you.
And my final question I know your also known as a world traveler have you ever been to Philadelphia?
Yeah, I have one of the first jobs I had at a drama school was to understudy in national tour of a play called The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife and I took it around the country and it played in Philadelphia at the Forest theatre.  I stayed in Rittenhouse Square for about 2 and a half weeks. I ate at Striped Bass and I ate at Le Bec Fin. I have family around there actually some of my cousins live in Bucks County. They are from there and are very good friends of mine, they are my family and I love them very dearly.
I would also like to give a quick shout-out to another friend in Philadelphia area Joe Hortua the writer and his wife Beth are good friends of mine as well as his kids Pablo and Milan.