Yorkshire man becomes first British white man to star Bollywood film

A personal trainer from Yorkshire has become the first British white man to land a starring role in a Bollywood blockbuster. 

Richard Lovatt, from Huddersfield, has taken over 50 lessons to learn Hindi and will fly to Mumbai to shoot a film with one of India’s biggest production houses.

The 32-year-old is committed to his role and will be speaking Hindi throughout the film which is set to air at the end of 2023. 

He said: ‘As a white bloke from Huddersfield, I never thought I would be playing such a big role in a Bollywood film.

Richard, who has acted in minor parts in four other Bollywood films and a TV series, continued saying: ‘I’m so excited. It’s going to be incredible and I’m more than ready.’

‘It is a tough language to learn, really hard. I hadn’t learned another language before, I have only ever been able to speak the deep Yorkshire dialect.

‘But lots of my friends in India speak Hindi, so I was around the language constantly, picking it up.’

Richard has taken over 50 lessons to learn Hindi and will fly to Mumbai to shoot a film with one of India’s biggest production houses (Filming for Rich in Bollywood in 2018)

The personal trainer had a small role in the film Karwaan in 2017 with popular actor Irrfan Khan

The personal trainer, who has no formal acting training, first ended up in India when his job took him there on a three-month contract to help actors get into shape, including stars such as Ranveer Singh – Bollywood’s equivalent to Tom Cruise.

He also put together nutrition plans and ran workouts and one-to-one gym sessions for big names such as Arjun Kapoor and the late Sushant Singh Rajput.

After developing an interest in their lives and films, Richard began looking for work on smaller roles.

Now he is on the road to international stardom in his own right with more than  50,000 followers across his Instagram @iamrichardlovatt and YouTube where he’s known as ‘Gora’, translated as ‘white guy’ in Hindi.

Richard also played a small part of a prison guard in the film Fan with Shahrukh Khan in 2014

The personal trainer, who has no formal acting training, first ended up in India when his job took him there on a three-month contract to help actors get into shape (pictured on his first trip in 2014) 

Posting videos of himself on YouTube speaking in Hindi, one day Richard received a call out-of-the-blue from a casting agency – and immediately hopped on a plane to Mumbai. 

He said: ‘I did about two week’s preparation for it because it was fairly long and I had to dance too.

‘I auditioned and they offered me the part on the spot. It is unheard of for a foreign, non-native Hindi speaker to get this type of role.

‘I then had to do loads of training on accent stuff and fighting. I did four days of intensive fight training; it was really hard. It was real Bruce Lee stuff, proper Kung Fu.’

The project was delayed due to the pandemic, but is now set to go ahead.

He also put together nutrition plans and ran workouts and one-to-one gym sessions for big names in the film industry 

After developing an interest in their lives and films, Richard began looking for work on smaller roles and later joined the cast in the film Rocket Boys in 2021

On his arrival in India, Richard will have his beard shaved off and his hair dyed a darker colour, with filming continuing into April.

He added said: ‘I’ve just always known something amazing was coming my way.

‘All I needed was patience and hard work. When I was a kid, I wanted to do drama but I thought I would get bullied if I did.

‘I really wanted to be on TV but I ended up going to uni and studying sports management, then dropped out of that and did TV and film and dropped out of that too!’

‘Now I am going to be starring in a major Bollywood role. I would never have imagined that would happen.’