S MAGAZINE ★ 4 AUGUST 2019 31
INTERVIEW
Greetings From Bury Park was “beautiful”. The
problem was that Sarfraz, her plus-one and a
Springsteen-obsessive, had interviewed his hero
several times but was now so awestruck he
was almost hyperventilating. Gurinder, rarely
backward at coming forward, did just that. And
although it wasn’t her wincingly naff, “We’re so
glad you’re here in London, Bruce” line that
sealed the deal, she was soon exchanging
contact details with his manager, Jon Landau.
We meet in her favourite Italian restaurant,
Lume in north London’s Primrose Hill where
she expands on how she helped journalist
Sarfraz, the son of Pakistani parents, turn his
book, set in 1987 Luton, into a screenplay.
“These were the harsh Thatcher years of
racism, unemployment and the National Front,”
she says. “I managed to make Sarfraz a bit
cooler by giving him a girlfriend. But we’d no
movie unless we had permission to use
Bruce’s music and we’d been figuring out how
we could get to talk to him or someone
connected to him.”
She is so laid-back you’d never think her
days are spent plate-spinning, with multiple
projects on the go, plus 12-year-old twins
Ronak and his sister Kumiko – also on the go.
Now 59, it once seemed parenthood wasn’t
going to happen for Gurinder and Japanese-
American husband Paul Mayeda Berges. They’d
talked about adoption but decided to have one
more crack at IVF. “Nobody was more shocked
when the results came back – and not one baby
but two.” Her pregnancy, for the most part, was
a breeze. “I was at my healthiest. But my blood
pressure started going up because I was so big
and the side-effects of the drugs I was put on
were scary. I didn’t know it at the time but
I was having psychotic episodes. The babies
were four weeks early and needed to stay inhospital for a while, which meant I could go
home, rest and get over my C-section.”
Born in Nairobi to Indian parents, the family
moved to Southall, London, when Gurinder was
two. Always proud of his daughter, her father,
who’d faced prejudice when she was growing
up, died in a gardening accident 20 years ago.
The sadness of his not seeing her success with
Bend It Like Beckham still gnaws at her. Home
and family are at the heart of her happiness.
“My son wouldn’t admit it, but yes he and his
sister are close. Roni is the naughty one of thetwo. He pushes the boundaries. Always. But
Kumi can’t bear it if I tell her brother off. Every
weekend they have what they call sofa club.
They bring their duvets down from their
bedrooms, along with their toys and cuddly
nonsense, take over the lounge and watch
whatever rubbish is on TV.”
Gurinder met her husband at the 1993
Toronto Film Festival where her award-winning
film, Bhaji On The Beach, about a group of
women of Indian descent on a day trip to
Blackpool was being shown. “Paul and I are
very similar. He’s a Virgo, a bit OCD and he
hoards. It drives me nuts,” she says. “But
we’re a great partnership. We work well.”Needless to say, this is a family that loves
its football and Gurinder, awarded an OBE in
2006 for services to the British Film Industry,
kept a close eye on the Women’s World Cup
recently. “The team have been quoted as saying
that they all watched Bend It and a lot of them
were playing football because of that film.”
So she is proud she had a lot to do with
putting women’s footy on the international
map. “The only thing that fixes the film into
a timeframe is that David Beckham doesn’t
play for Man United any more. It’s 17 years
since I took it up to Manchester to show it to
him,” she says.
She wasn’t nearly so nervous when she flew
to New York to screen Blinded By The Light to
arguably the world’s most famous rock singer
in a film that includes an album’s worth of his
music. “The first thing he said afterwards was,
‘Thank you for looking after me so beautifully.
Please don’t change a thing.’ Oh my God. My
knees were gone and he spoke to me for about
an hour about everything he loved about it.”
Gurinder has a knack of discovering unknown
young actors who go on to become household
names, among them Keira Knightley, Archie
Panjabi, Parminder Nagra and now 20-year-old
Viveik Kalra, still at drama school when she
cast him as Javed in Blinded By The Light.
Viveik was also in her lavish period TV drama
series Beecham House – as were the twins.
“They were visiting me in India for a week
and I couldn’t resist so I got them dressed up
to be in a scene at the palace. They’re in
Blinded, too. My son plays young Javed and he
said after his scenes, ‘Thanks mum. This is
the best day of my life.’” And the smile on
Gurinder’s face says it all.Blinded By The Light is in cinemas from Friday.From far left: Gurinder with twins Kumiko
and Ronak and the Beecham House cast;
Parminda Nagra and Keira Knightley in
Bend It Like Beckham; a scene from
Blinded By The Light with Viveik Kalra“It was the best
gig I’d ever been
to... I became
a massive fan”
●SWENN / PA