{"id":130146,"date":"2025-11-09T09:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T09:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/130146\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T09:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T09:10:10","slug":"gurinder-chadha-on-bend-it-like-beckham-sequel-and-new-film-christmas-karma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/130146\/","title":{"rendered":"Gurinder Chadha on Bend It Like Beckham sequel and new film Christmas Karma"},"content":{"rendered":"

Noor NanjiCulture reporter<\/p>\n

\"ChristmasChristmas Karma<\/p>\n

Gurinder Chadha has written and directed a new festive film, Christmas Karma<\/p>\n

What does Bollywood have to do with Christmas?<\/p>\n

I put this question to film director Gurinder Chadha and the answer, it turns out, is quite a lot.<\/p>\n

“Bollywood is all about singing, dancing, joy,” she said. “So I think that for me, the idea of making a joyful Christmas film, with singing and dancing, it comes naturally for this time of year.”<\/p>\n

And that’s exactly what Chadha – best known for directing the 2002 film Bend It Like Beckham – has just done.<\/p>\n

With a cast including Kunal Nayyar, Hugh Bonneville, Pixie Lott, Boy George, Danny Dyer, Charithra Chandran and Eva Longoria, her new musical film Christmas Karma is a Bollywood spin on Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol.<\/p>\n

But Chadha says it’s also “a British film” celebrating a wide range of musical traditions.<\/p>\n

The 65-year-old, who wrote and directed it, has also been busy working on her sequel to Bend It Like Beckham. This summer, she confirmed to the BBC<\/a> that a revival is in the works.<\/p>\n

Speaking to me at a central London hotel earlier this week, she indicated she was feeling the pressure to get it right.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m working on the characters. These are big boots to fill,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to rush it. The last thing I want is people to go, ‘it’s not as good as the original’.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ChristmasChristmas Karma<\/p>\n

The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar stars as a contemporary Scrooge, called Mr Sood<\/p>\n

First published in 1843, A Christmas Carol tells the story of the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, who hates Christmas, but is transformed after a series of ghostly visits.<\/p>\n

In Christmas Karma, we are met with a modern-day Scrooge called Mr Sood, who goes on a similar journey of redemption.<\/p>\n

Nayyar, best known for playing Raj in The Big Bang Theory, plays Mr Sood – but says he is nothing like Scrooge in real life. “I love Christmas,” he tells me. “Who doesn’t love Christmas? Of course I love Christmas.”<\/p>\n

The actor said he always celebrated Christmas growing up in New Delhi. “Indians have a beautiful procurement to celebrate all festivals,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"ChristmasChristmas Karma<\/p>\n

Hugh Bonneville is barely recognisable as the ghost of Jacob Marley<\/p>\n

The first ghost to visit Mr Sood is his former partner, Jacob Marley, played by Paddington and Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville.<\/p>\n

He’s also visited by American singer and actor Billy Porter, who acts as The Ghost of Christmas Present.<\/p>\n

Porter says that up until this film, he was “definitely” more of a Scrooge.<\/p>\n

But Bonneville professes to be a huge Christmas fan. He also rejects suggestions that November is too early for a festive film to come out in cinemas.<\/p>\n

“I used to be Bah Humbug about it, and want Christmas decorations to go up on, frankly, Boxing Day, but I’m getting earlier and earlier,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Although I do draw the line at certain Christmas songs being played too early, I think they should be banned.”<\/p>\n

As a sidenote, I had to ask Bonneville about whether he’s planning to go and see the new Paddington musical<\/a>. “I’m going next week,” he told me. “I’m looking forward to seeing that equally timeless story being told.”<\/p>\n

\"ChristmasChristmas Karma<\/p>\n

In the film, Danny Dyer plays a cabbie who drives around Kunal Nayyar’s Scrooge<\/p>\n

In Christmas Karma, Mr Sood is depicted as being among the 28,000 Ugandan Asian refugees who came to the UK in 1972<\/a> after being given 90 days to leave the African country by military dictator Idi Amin.<\/p>\n

In later life, we see Mr Sood being dismissive of refugees seeking asylum in the UK. “The rich ones always forget their roots,” one bystander remarks.<\/p>\n

But after being guided by the ghosts of Christmas – played by Eva Longoria, Billy Porter, and Boy George – Mr Sood reconnects with his past.<\/p>\n

Chadha says the inspiration for her Scrooge came from a \u201cGrinch-like\u201d family member who used to criticise them for celebrating Christmas. \u201c\u2018I don\u2019t know why you\u2019re all doing this. You\u2019re not white\u2019,\u201d she says he would tell them.<\/p>\n

Later, she came to understand that, like Mr Sood, he was \u201ccarrying the trauma\u201d of having been forced to leave his home country as a child.<\/p>\n

But she also says she was inspired by certain politicians.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt also made sense to me to make my Sood say slightly right-wing things, because when I was writing it [during lockdown], we did have a government that had members of the Asian community who would have a similar background,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"ChristmasChristmas Karma<\/p>\n

Leo Suter and Pixie Lott star as a couple celebrating Christmas with their children<\/p>\n

For Leo Suter, who plays Mr Sood’s underpaid employee Bob Crachett, there\u2019s an important message he hopes people take away from the film.<\/p>\n

\u201cDickens’s work has lasted\u2026 a very long time, because of the message at the core of it. The original text is that empathy, morality, generosity is better than being a Scrooge and being miserly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what the film does so well is totally bring that spirit into quite a complex and nuanced discussion of migration and racial things going on in modern Britain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The film also has a Bhangra Christmas song, and a tribute to George Michael with Bollywood superstar Priyanka Chopra Jonas singing a desi take on Last Christmas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it’s got all the things that you want in a Christmas film,\u201d adds Pixie Lott, who plays Suter’s on-screen wife Mary Crachett.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes you cry, it makes you laugh. It’s so feel good, but it also touches you in a way that makes you think about your own life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christmas Karma is in cinemas from 14 November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Noor NanjiCulture reporter Christmas Karma Gurinder Chadha has written and directed a new festive film, Christmas Karma What…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270],"class_list":["post-130146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}