After years of working in Hindi productions, Alia Bhatt has made her American-produced debut in Heart of Stone and director Tom Harper is overjoyed with her work in the movie. Bhatt stars in the Netflix spy thriller as Keya Dhawan, a computer hacker looking to steal the advanced artificial intelligence known as The Heart from a clandestine agency known as The Charter to get revenge on Indian criminal syndicates who left her an orphan. Heart of Stone marks Bhatt's first venture outside of starring in a variety of Indian-based projects, including the record-breaking Telugu action drama RRR and fantasy adventure trilogy launcher Brahmāstra: Part One – Shiva.
Ahead of the movie's premiere, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with Tom Harper to discuss Heart of Stone. When asked about casting Alia Bhatt as one of the movie's main villains, and his experience working with the Bollywood star, the director praised her work on the action thriller, calling her a "ferocious talent" and also celebrating Netflix's efforts to allow filmmakers to broaden their casting to international territories, where there are "many great talented people." See what Harper shared below:
I think that's one of the really nice things about the streamers is that, because as the market becomes increasingly global, and it goes on the platform in all countries in the world at the same time, they're increasingly aware of how many great talented people are in other countries. I think that, not just with Alia, actually, but with Matthias, as well, obviously with Gal, with Jing, with Jamie, that's a real multinational cast, and it sort of feels organic within the story, I really love that. Alia is just a great example of someone who's a ferocious talent, who's luminous, and charismatic, and has everything that you want from a movie star, but, she's a real artist as well. She does have a huge body of work behind her, she's been an actor for a very long time, and really honed her skills. It's great, it's a real pleasure working with her to get that opportunity. I mean, it's an obvious one, but first and foremost, that character was always Indian, but she brought that authenticity, and she was able to bring that nuance to the character. She had lots of ideas about where Dhawan was from, and what her upbringing might be like, and things that she might say, and she wouldn't say. Again, just a level of authenticity to that, she just really threw herself into it. The thing I liked most about what she did is you really made that villain feel — or that character, I should say — feel grounded, because the villain never thinks they're the villain. No one goes and thinks that they're doing bad things, or even if they do, they think they did it for good reason, and they justify it. I think that's what she really brought to it, she really had a very clear idea of what she was doing, why she was doing it, and I think that makes it feel like a rounded character you believe, and who you're interested in.
Editor's Note: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, and the movie covered here would not exist without the labor of the writers and actors in both unions.
How Bhatt's Heart of Stone Casting Continues A Positive Hollywood Trend
Though something that's been seen at various points throughout the years, Bhatt being cast for Heart of Stone marks a positive continuation of Hollywood's recent trend in better spotlighting Indian creatives on screen. Netflix themselves have been a major figure in this trend, having acquired the streaming rights for RRR, propelling it to further international success, including being the first Indian movie by an Indian production to win an Oscar. Similarly, another of the streamer's blockbuster productions, The Gray Man, cast Dhanush as a hard-hitting mercenary.
Some of the more widely recognized Indian actors to make the transition to American-based productions are that of Priyanka Chopra Jonas and the late Irrfan Khan. The former made her English-language debut with 2013's Girl Rising documentary and Cars spin-off Planes before finding success with ABC's spy thriller Quantico, The Matrix Resurrections' Sati and Prime Video's Citadel, which has a season 2 in development. Though having a few English productions to his name prior, Khan broke out internationally with 2006's The Namesake before going on to co-star in Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited, Ang Lee's Life of Pi and the first Jurassic World movie, among many others.
While Heart of Stone does continue Netflix's streak of negative reviews from critics for its blockbuster productions, the success it's enjoyed with viewers is sure to help Bhatt become a more familiar name with international viewers. With the movie also ending with Keya now working alongside Gal Gadot's Rachel and Matthias Schweighöfer's Jack in the field for The Charter, the franchise plans for the thriller could very well just be the start for the already established actor in American-based productions.
