Ajay Naidu is a precise comic actor who helps an ensemble feel like a group of distinct people. We rate his contribution to Office Space, while wishing its writing gave Samir more to do.
Fi1m perspective
In Office Space (1999), Ajay Naidu’s Samir shares the office’s frustration without becoming interchangeable with the other men enduring it. Beside David Herman’s Michael Bolton, he helps make the complaints belong to recognisable colleagues. We laughed in recognition because the pair make workplace irritation feel personal, even when everyone has much the same reason to be annoyed. Naidu does this modest but essential ensemble work well, giving the jokes someone specific to happen to.
Before Samir, there was the convenience-store owner Nazeer Choudhury in SubUrbia (1996). It marked his return to film after several years concentrated on classical theatre, with a supporting role that allowed for layered dramatic work. Office Space brought wider recognition, but supporting film and television parts have remained central to his work. He has continued in theatre, too. His first feature as director, Ashes (2010), also makes it worth looking beyond the familiar comic role when considering his career.
Mike Judge makes good use of Naidu in Office Space, where the comedy needs several kinds of dissatisfaction occupying the same workplace. Naidu and Herman help sustain that variety alongside Ron Livingston’s weary Peter and Stephen Root’s ill-fitting Milton. The limitation is on the page: these colleagues are drawn briefly, and making them distinguishable can only do so much. We would welcome more depth for Samir, but Naidu makes the available material work without needing the film to stop for him.
The darker independent films belong in the picture, too, though we would be careful about using their merits to praise every actor in them. Naidu plays Farroukh in Darren Aronofsky’s Pi (1998), and appears again for Aronofsky as a mailman in Requiem for a Dream (2000). Our enthusiasm for Pi rests chiefly on its grainy images, abrasive music and the loneliness of its mathematical obsession. Its relentless tension also gives the ideas too little room. For an introduction to Naidu, start with Office Space, allowing for a story that weakens towards the end.
Biography
Ajay Naidu is an American actor born on 12 February 1972 in Evanston, Illinois. He trained at the American Repertory Theater's Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University and worked extensively in classical theatre between 1988 and 1995.
His early screen roles include Touch and Go (1986) and Vice Versa (1988). He returned to film with SubUrbia (1996), for which he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Male. Naidu is known for his performances in Pi (1998) as Farroukh, Office Space (1999) as Samir, Requiem for a Dream (2000), and guest appearances in series such as The Sopranos and The West Wing.
He is married to actress Heather Burns.
