A Mission nine-year-old made his acting debut in a Hallmark movie that aired earlier this month.
Christmas with the Singhs opened on Nov. 15 with local actor Adiv Sharma cast as “Michael”.
Sharma only began acting this year and landed “Michael” as his first role after an audition.
“I got so, so excited,” Sharma said.
Before the audition, Sharma was both nervous and excited. Upon learning he got the part, the excitement took over.
“I was speechless and I just fell down and got so excited. I was just jumping,” he said.
The movie was shot in the Lower Mainland, including Abbotsford. Sharma says the cast and crew were great to work with.
The sets were “super-Christmassy” and Sharma practiced his scenes to prepare. Some of his favourite scenes include handing out candy at a church and a dance scene.
“I was nervous on the first day, but then not the other days. I was settled in,” he said.
Ashok Sharma, Adiv’s father, said his son is humble and didn’t make a big deal of his movie airing earlier in the month. He had a basketball tournament the same day, so the family watched it together when they got home.
“My wife Reena and I are excited and very happy for him,” Ashok said. “He and his brother, Joza, just started acting this year. For the South Asian community too to just have a Hallmark movie and for it to be filmed near Mission is super exciting.”
Adiv and Joza are both participating in Young Actors training online. The family watches a lot of Bollywood films and Adiv has dreams of winning more awards than Shah Rukh Khan.
“I want to book like so many commercials .. everything,” he said.
Hallmark’s synopsis of Christmas with the Singhs is as follows:
“For Asha Singh, Christmas is the most important time of the year. But when she’s stuck working at the hospital during the holidays, she wishes for some much-needed Christmas magic. Enter Jake, her former high school classmate, who unexpectedly reappears in her life. After a magical year together, Jake proposes. But their first Christmas as an engaged couple isn’t exactly the fairytale they imagined. When they head home for the holidays, they quickly discover their picture-perfect romance is about to get a serious reality check: their families couldn’t be more different! Juggling various holiday traditions, big personalities, cultural differences and complicated family dynamics proves to be a challenge as Asha and Jake have to learn if they can bridge their two families and survive a Christmas with the Singhs.”
