The Dharker Side: An Audience with Queen Jamillia

By Pablo Hidalgo

"I have two criteria for choosing a role," says Ayesha Dharker, the internationally acclaimed actress who played the brief part of Queen Jamillia in Episode II. "One is if I think it'll stretch me in some way. The other is if I think it would be fun and I really want to work with the people who are doing it."

Star Wars fell into the latter category of Dharker's filmography, and stands a galaxy apart from what is arguably her best known role as Malli in The Terrorist. It was her challenging and compelling depiction of a young suicide bomber questioning her resolve that brought her to the attention of Casting Director Robin Gurland.

"When we made the film, everybody kept saying, why are you killing yourself making this film? Nobody is going to see it. Not one single soul is going to watch it," she recounts. But among the people to have seen the Santosh Sivan-directed drama was actor John Malkovich, who praised the film in an article in The New York Times.

"Robin Gurland had seen that article, but she couldn't get a hold of the film," says Dharker. "Samuel L. Jackson had a copy of the film in his trailer and gave it to her. When Robin called me, I only half-believed her, because you don't think people like Samuel L. Jackson are running around with your film in their trailer."

While the making of The Terrorist was an arduous task, Dharker describes Episode II as a fun vacation in comparison. "I can't honestly say I spent hours agonizing over it, because I didn't. It was five lines, and the costume did all the acting for me. It's on the page and you do it," she says. "But it was incredible fun and I had a great time doing it."

Dharker was born in 1977, the same year the Star Wars phenomenon began to spread around the world. As a child in Bombay, India, Dharker became enamored with the sweeping tale of classic heroism. "For any kid that grew up in the 80s, Star Wars just became part of your mythology and mental landscape," she says. "Every kid in Bombay at some point was running around with a lightsaber."

Embraced around the world, Star Wars transcended cultural barriers, something Dharker believes was particularly easy in India. "In India, there's a huge tradition of storytelling," she says. "In our mythology, initially there was no concept of Hell, and there was no devil. The Gods that we worship are both good and bad. They have bad tempers, sort of like the Greek Gods. The whole idea of two very recognizable counterpoints of good and evil, that aren't always that easily separated, and a fallen angel, like Darth Vader, a good guy gone wrong -- that has an enormous amount of power."

For the role of Queen Jamillia, Dharker found herself traveling to Australia and Italy. "The buildup to it was so enormous, because I spent a month in Australia, and then a week-and-a-half in Lake Como, and then a few days in Caserta," she says, for what ultimately ended up being half-a-day of shooting. "I was around for so long, doing very little. It's quite unusual, because normally, if there's a camera in the room, your mind flips into work-mode. You're reaching for the nearest script and trying to think about it. Here, I didn't have to do that. It was really nice."

Since the Costume Department had set up in Australia for the bulk of principal photography, Dharker was flown to Fox Studios in Sydney to undergo fittings for Queen Jamillia's elaborate gown and headpiece. Like Queen Amidala, her predecessor, Jamillia would continue the Naboo tradition of ornate regalia, but since she would only appear in one scene, she wouldn't have to undergo as many costume changes as Natalie Portman did. "It was great fun because normally, my work doesn't involve dressing up," she says.

Though Dharker's role would only require her to shoot in the Royal Palace in Caserta, she did accompany the crew to Lake Como, where the secret Naboo lake retreat was shot. "It is a staggeringly beautiful place," she recounts. "The day before I shot my scene is the day I actually read the whole script. There was somebody standing outside the hotel door while I read it. I just found that absolutely hysterical -- I felt like some kind of private eye or FBI agent with special information. I've never done a role in circumstances like that."

Though that was her first time reading the scene on paper, Dharker had been briefed previously as to what Queen Jamillia represented, and what the character's thoughts were on the increasing conflict within the Republic. Despite the long lead-up, the reality of being in a Star Wars movie did not sink in until she saw one of the saga's central stars. In an experience often shared by actors in the prequel trilogy, the full weight of Star Wars only really hit Dharker when she saw R2-D2 on set.

"That's the only point where you suddenly think, 'Oh my God, it's actually Star Wars,'" she says. "Sure you meet the other actors, but they're people -- and you see people all the time and they look fairly normal, even Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen who look slightly superhuman. But with Artoo -- if you've grown up watching R2-D2 and trying to emulate his beeps and boops -- to see him shuffling about is a very, very frightening thing, because, it suddenly questions your sense of reality quite seriously."

The term "independent film" has become synonymous with "low-budget" and "small scale" to many. Episode II is the largest independent film Dharker has ever worked on, but she was pleased to find a familial feel of a small, committed team on the set of the complex production.

"It was like being on some kind of bizarre, surreal picnic," she says with a laugh. "All the people know each other very, very well. I think that attitude comes from the director. Every film I've been on, the personality of the director and the way he treats people will filter down to every single department."

Dressed in the royal gown, seated upon her throne, and surrounded by her advisory staff, Dharker's scene took a mere half-day to complete under the production's tight schedule. "I think a lot of small independent filmmakers like to believe that people with comparatively unlimited amounts of money are not as committed. In George Lucas's case, that's completely off-the-mark. I was very surprised by how hands-on he was, and how similar he was to the other people I work with. It's his film, and you can see that he absolutely wants it to be a good film. He's not the kind of person that will sit back and snap his fingers if he wants something done. He actually gets up and does it," she recalls.