A Kingston-based actor has landed a lead role in a major Bollywood film despite not being able to speak the language it is filmed in and family pressures to take a more traditional job.

Kiran Rai, 22, is flying to Sri Lanka in two weeks’ time to start filming Parachute, a romcom about a policeman who falls in love with a Muslim girl despite her overly protective parents protests.

Mr Rai has been working as a model and actor for six years, but this is his first lead role in a film. He said: “I come from a very traditional Indian family and they wanted me to be a doctor, lawyer or dentist like all my cousins or brother.

“That kind of life just wasn’t for me. I could never sit still at school and just knew I wanted to do some kind of performing.”

Mr Rai heard about the role through a friend and auditioned for a bit of fun, not thinking he would actually get the part. He said: “The whole movie is being filmed in a language I don’t even speak. I’m doing my lines in English and they’re going to dub over me in Urdu, which is obviously a bit strange.

“I’ve done a bit of modelling work, but I’m not the best looking of guys so I guess they just saw something in me that the lead required.

“I’ve worked really hard for this, going to auditions from the age of 16 and it is one of the most exciting things that could have happened.”

Mr Rai left his home town of Nottingham when he was 16 to head to south-west London where he has family. He now splits his time between Kingston and Twickenham.

Mr Rai said: “I always knew I would have to come down to London to be what I wanted to be.

“I’m a complete workaholic working on my own radio show, chat show and modelling work, but acting is my absolute dream and I hope that this film will be the start of something big.”