“He was porous. He wanted to get everything just right. We were both committed to keeping that sense of ‘bizarreness’ of America alive in the film,” Nair said.
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Before he became a global icon, Irrfan Khan was a young actor waiting for the right opportunity, and Mira Nair knew she had found something special.
Their first encounter was in the modest basement of Delhi’s National School of Drama, where Nair had gone to cast a minor role for her 1988 film ‘Salaam Bombay!’. She met Irrfan, gave him just a single-scene part, and walked away with a promise to herself: ‘I’ll come back for him with something worthy.’
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It took 15 years for that promise to be fulfilled. But when it did, it was unforgettable. In 2006, Irrfan played Ashoke Ganguli in Nair’s ‘The Namesake’, a role that became one of the most profound performances of his career.
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Based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, the film follows a Bengali couple navigating immigration and identity in the United States.
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Interestingly, Irrfan had never set foot in America before the shoot, something that thrilled Mira Nair. “I loved that he had never been to America because you can’t almost act that. I mean, maybe you can, but there’s something real when you ‘feel’ that newness,” she recalled during an old interview. “He retained that sense of wonder. It showed in his eyes. That unfamiliarity became a gift for the role.”
While his co-star Tabu stayed with Jhumpa Lahiri’s family in New York to absorb the nuances of a Bengali immigrant household, Khan went the opposite route, literally. He checked into a hotel in the heart of Times Square, soaking in the chaotic, neon-soaked energy of Manhattan.
But Nair still introduced him to Lahiri’s parents on day one.
Because Khan wasn’t Bengali, getting the right tone was crucial. Nair hoped that Amar Lahiri, Jhumpa’s father and a librarian, would serve as the ideal reference. But another voice started to influence Khan more than expected: the Bengali caterer on set.
“Slowly Irrfan began to sound like the caterer,” Nair laughed. “And that accent was so thick, no one could understand it, not even Americans!” Eventually, the team had to dial it back.
“We toned down the caterer and turned up the librarian,” she quipped.
What stood out most for Nair was Khan’s hunger: his openness to absorb, to learn, and to refine. “He was porous. He wanted to get everything just right. We were both committed to keeping that sense of ‘bizarreness’ of America alive in the film, especially in the early stages,” she said.
Though ‘The Namesake’ premiered nearly two decades ago, its legacy, like Khan’s performance, continues to resonate. And now, Mira Nair finds herself back in the headlines, but for a different reason.
Her son, Zohran Mamdani is making political waves. In 2020, he became a New York State Assembly member representing Astoria, Queens. Fast forward to 2025: he’s won the Democratic primary and is now in the race to become New York City’s next mayor.
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