Ajay Naidu

Actor Ajay Naidu made an auspicious and promising onscreen debut in 1984, when then-tyro director Robert Mandel cast him in a pivotal and difficult role -- that of a tough Chicagoan preteen who becomes accessory to the mugging of a hockey player (Michael Keaton) and then watches the athlete fall for his mother (Maria Conchita Alonso), in the romantic comedy sleeper Touch and Go. Unfortunately, that film got shelved for two years, but when it did reach the public, in August 1986, it put Naidu on the map and paved the way for additional film work. After an appearance in the fantasy comedy Vice Versa (1988), Naidu took time off for around a decade to accommodate schooling, then returned to screens during his mid- to late twenties. At that point, producers often typecast the muscle-bound, frequently bald actor as tough characters, often with Middle Eastern backgrounds. Among other projects, he played Samir in Mike Judge's ode to cubicle hell, Office Space (1999); portrayed a physician at a mental institution in Iain Softley's cerebral sci-fi outing K-PAX (2001); and landed a brief but memorable role as a Hindustani Troublemaker in the Billy Bob Thornton Christmas black comedy Bad Santa (2003). Naidu also essayed a supporting role in director Joseph Castelo's controversial, terrorist-themed post-9/11 drama The War Within (2005) and landed another small supporting part in director Griffin Dunne's light romantic comedy The Accidental Husband (2008).