*I was provided with this product and interview opportunity. Any opinions are 100% my own.
Bring home a story about love, passion, and food, when you pick up The Hundred-Foot Journey on Blu-ray starting December 2nd! Starring Manish Dayal and Helen Mirren, The Hundred-Foot Journey isn’t a journey about how far you can get in terms of length, to me, it’s how far you can get in terms of growth as a person.
Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal) is a culinary ingénue with the gastronomic equivalent of perfect pitch. Displaced from their native India, the Kadam family, led by Papa (Om Puri), settles in the quaint village of Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val in the south of France. Filled with charm, it is both picturesque and elegant – the ideal place to settle down and open an Indian restaurant, the Maison Mumbai. That is, until the chilly chef proprietress of Le Saule Pleureur, a Michelin starred, classical French restaurant run by Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren), gets wind of it. Her icy protests against the new Indian restaurant a hundred feet from her own escalate to all out war between the two establishments – until Hassan’s passion for French haute cuisine and for Mme. Mallory’s enchanting sous chef, Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon), combine with his mysteriously delicious talent to weave magic between their two cultures and imbue Saint-Antonin with the flavors of life that even Mme. Mallory cannot ignore. At first Mme. Mallory’s culinary rival, she eventually recognizes Hassan’s gift as a chef and takes him under her wing.
I got the chance to hop on the phone for an exclusive interview with Manish Dayal this evening and I really wanted to know how The Hundred-Foot Journey had changed his life regarding the way he looked at food.
“I eat a lot more! I feel like I have a bigger appreciation for food and how much of an art form it really is. – Manish Dayal”
Creating amazingly delicious masterpieces with food really is an art form, and one that I am far from mastering. I will leave it to the culinary geniuses and stick to what I do best….taste testing. 😉
Knowing that Manish had previously been in “902101” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, I couldn’t help but wonder what drew him to this role, which seemed so different from the others he had played.
“There are so many things about this project that were intriguing, beyond Spielberg being my childhood hero. The character evolves from a young man with no complicated responsibilities, to a man with larger, complicated responsibilities. Age, maturity, speech….how they evolve over time. Hassan is a observer, prodigy, introvert, a quiet guy, so far from my own personality. I got to learn how they act and behave and observe and that’s cool as an actor. – Manish Dayal”
Manish had a lot of favorite scenes he shot for The Hundred-Foot Journey, but one was pretty special too him. The omelette scene with Helen Mirren…..
“We are getting ready to cook this omelette, and right before cooking I’m looking at the script. In the script there was a french omelette Hassan was supposed to make and he wouldn’t know how to make that. I changed the recipe to the same omelette my dad made growing up. Doing that hat scene and exploring it with Helen Mirren was amazing. – Manish Dayal”
You can find The Hundred-Foot Journey on Blu-ray at retailers nationwide as well as online.
“The Hundred-Foot Journey is a movie that will live on, have a history, and has everything in it. War, love, passion, talent, imagination. A story that can inspire you. You have to know what the Hundred-Feet in The Hundred-Foot Journey means. You have to go a certain distance and risk it to achieve. – Manish Dayal”
The Hundred-Foot Journey Facebook Page
*I was provided with this product and interview opportunity. Any opinions are 100% my own.
Leave a Reply