Kriti Sanon starrer Mimi started streaming on Netflix and Jio Cinema last month. The movie has received a great response, and apart from Kriti, child actor Jacob Smith has grabbed everyone’s attention with his performance in it.
Jacob is a five-year-old British boy from Aberdeen who plays the role of Raj in the film, Mimi’s son. According to The Times, the kid had to learn about 16 pages of dialogue in Hindi for the movie.
The opportunity came to Jacob in December 2019 and Kris, his father said that they did not believe it. While talking to The Times, Kris said, “We turned up (to pick Jacob up from nursery) one Friday afternoon and there was a casting agency there. We thought it was funny at the time, we thought there was no way this was going to end up happening.”
“We left Aberdeen and the UK to get away from stress so we didn’t want to chuck our boy into a film . . . but the production team put us at ease that he would be looked after,” he added.
Kris and his wife, Julie, along with their children Erihn and Jacob left Scotland in June 2019 to fulfill their dream of traveling the world. The Smith family visited Jordan, Albania, Serbia, Hungary, and India. But, due to the lockdown, they had to quarantine themselves in Nepal for several months.
They relocated to Mumbai so that Jacob can get trained in acting, and spend time with the cast and crew. The shooting of Mimi took place in Rajasthan, North India and the production team used toys and created superhero scenarios to help him shoot his scenes. In the movie, his lines were dubbed by someone else because of Jacob’s accent.
For more than a year, the family had to keep Jacob’s role a secret, but they finally got to watch it when the movie started streaming last month. Kris said, “[Jacob] is already over it. The only time he was really interested was when he came on screen. I think he may have grown an ego.”
While Jacob’s performance is getting praised, his parents said that they would not push him into an acting career.
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