Shades of Ray was released in 2008. It was an intimate, low-budget drama comedy about identity, love, and belonging, and hardly anyone expected it to resonate with so many viewers. Directed and written by Jaffar Mahmood, it told the story of Ray Rehman, a half-Pakistani, half-Caucasian man who attempts to reconcile his American upbringing with his South Asian roots. Caught between two worlds and two women, Ray’s character was funny, raw, and heartfelt. It depicted vulnerability, the kind that echo’s the project. It was a labor of love that took a lot of sacrifice, persistence, and cultural vulnerability to complete.
A Story About Identity, Made by Those Who Lived It
Ray, played by Zachary Levi–before he donned the suit for Shazam! or was cast for Chuck, takes center stage in Shades of Ray. Ray’s life takes a downturn when his white fiancée his marriage proposal, and, to complicate things, his estranged father–Brian George–a Pakistani, unexpectedly appears on his doorstep. As Ray’s life unfolds, we see his intense self-discovery as he learns to balance the disparate Pakastani and American cultures. For Ray, the irksome complication comes in the form of growing feelings for Sana (Sarah Shahi), a Pakistani-American woman struggling with the same identity issues. In this case, the lines between romance and identity completely fade.
That inner conflict was not fiction for writer-director Jaffar Mahmood. As the son of Pakistani immigrants and having been raised in the U.S., he placed his own sense of belonging on the story. The film, therefore, became the ultimate story of self confession. In this case, the authenticity of the film became its greatest strength but, paradoxically, its biggest obstacle.
In interviews, Mahmood described the long process of writing Shades of Ray as emotionally exhausting. He sought to create a film depicting the experience of feeling “too brown to be white, too white to be brown” without resorting to a lecture or a stereotype. He drew upon his own life experiences to create the dialogue and family dinner scenes. “It was almost like therapy,” he said. “But therapy you have to fund yourself.”
Mahmood described the beginning production of Shades of Ray as scrappy since he didn’t have studio backing or well-off investors. Rather, he gathered angel investors through friends, small grants, and favors. The cast and crew received minimal compensation and often worked long hours on small, cramped sets, which, in a unique and scrappy production, doubled as the apartments to which the story took place.
Cinematographer David McFarland recalled instances where the crew lost natural light and had to make do with household lamps, light bounced from aluminum sheets, and other improvisations. “We’d be in someone’s living room, pushing couches out of the way and pretending it was a film set”, he recalled, “It was pure guerilla filmmaking.”
This type of filmmaking has a specific culture. There was a positive reinforcing morale, a by-product of the under-collection of set meals and potluck style contributions. To tell a story that did not neatly fit into the narratives available in Hollywood was a badge of honor! Levi, Shahi, and George became deeply invested, not just as actors, but as believers in what the film as trying to tell.
The Emotional Weight on the Actors
For Zachary Levi, Shades of Ray was not just another role — it was a turning point. As a staff member today, he was previously drawn to Ray for the emotional aspects of the role, as well as the cultural complexity that the script presented. Levi is not of South Asian descent, and so he approached the role very cautiously, even more so than the culture. He worked on the character with Mahmood for hours. Levi understood the pain of the guilt, the confusion, and the hours of pretending “not to fit in.” He has in the past made a confession that he was having doubts and was very emotionally troubled during the shooting. “I kept asking Jaffar if I was doing justice to this man’s story,” he said. “I didn’t want to just appropriate; I wanted to empathize.”
Sarah Shahi has also recognized similar feelings in her own life. The cultural juggling that Sana had to perform was similar to Shahi’s own experiences, as Shahi is of Iranian and Spanish decent. She qualified her time on set as “strangely personal.” Shahi and Mahmood made in-between discussions and feelings of ‘visibility and invisibility’ the basis of their own understanding to elicit the ‘chemistry’ needed to perform the required scenes.
Small Set, Big Tensions
Stress was inescapable, given the endless delays and the consistently late capture of designated scenes. There was even a moment where a neighbor complained about the noise of the shoot and almost shut down a crucial outdoor shoot. Another time, their generator broke and the set was dark, which forced them to shoot the next day with no sleep. Mahmood was uncompromising and inauthentic, which was motivated by the challenged depicted in the crucial dinner scene, where Ray confronts his parents about their cultural disconnection. The emotion captured in that scene as ‘lived emotion’ resulted from the actor’s familial experiences.
But the emotional strain didn’t end when the cameras did. Later, Mahmood explained how, during the editing, he experienced a creative breakdown. Because the funding had run out, the intended post-production schedule expanded to six months. “There were days I thought it would never see daylight,” he explained. Friends lent their laptops, editing space, and moral support. Like its protagonist, the film survived because of community.
When Shades of Ray finally hit the festival circuit, it didn’t explode in terms of mainstream box office revenue, but it did explode in terms of conversation. This was the first time South Asian-Americans had the opportunity to see their experiences and lives represented on screen, and in an authentic and un-cliché manner at that. The honesty in the film’s humor was transcultural and transcended all societal and cultural barriers.
But even as the praises poured in, Mahmood lost his strongest non-South Asian-actor in the lead role. He faced it head-on, explaining that his aim was to construct a universal story about identity and that Ray’s struggle spanned far beyond one ethnicity. Regardless, the backlash hurt. In empathy’s name, the film focused on a bitter irony.
Levi exhibited an awareness of the implications of varied casting and appreciated the opportunity to assist in telling a story that expanded audiences’ understanding and horizons. “It made me more conscious, more careful,” he commented afterwards. “That awareness is a good thing.”
When Reel and Real Collided
Shades of Ray is far more poignant to watch now that I understand the challenges that went into making the film. Every time Ray becomes frustrated, feeling invisible, unsupported, or trapped between two cultures, he embodies the emotional struggle of the cast and crew of the film.
They were attempting to obtain fundamental acknowledgment, the right to represent themselves, and a place to belong in an industry that is often unsure where to situate people who challenge conventional definitions. This film represented more than the individual challenge of identity for its creator. It also mirrored the creative struggle of every artist.
As the years go by, i Shades of Ray … i can still silently applaud the success of the work. The success is not only from the story portrayed on-screen, but from the story that lay behind the scenes, the story that still needs to be told. The story of perseverance, the story of understanding, the story of relentless and beautiful struggle to belong to a place that continues to question, “What side are you on?”