Arts & Entertainment
 

UH alumnus lives his dream

Grover works with Hopper, other big names in silver screen success story

On the Scenes

Dusti Rhodes

You will see the doctor now.

Pavan Grover has done pretty well for himself in the medical field. He is a surgeon specializing in pain management, has debated Dr. Jack Kervorkian's lawyer on Larry King Live and has received an award of recognition from the Clinton administration for the work he has done in his practice. Even after all that, however, Grover had yet to fulfill his real dream.

Grover received his undergraduate degree in pre-medicine from UH with a minor in drama. After completing his education at Rutgers in New Jersey, he returned home to Houston and interned at the Texas Medical Center. Now he runs his own practice in Houston.

But Grover has never lost sight of his true passion.

"I always wanted to be an artist -- writing directing, acting -- my mom's dream was for me to be a doctor," Grover said. He hosted a weekly variety show, Asian Network, that was taped in the television studio at UH which, according to him, was quite popular - and tried hard to stay involved in acting while in college and medical school.

Once he became a doctor, Grover still thought about writing and acting, but he never pursued an entertainment career until his brother passed away.

"It was a really big traumatic moment, and I realized that I have to go after my dreams because I didn't want to have regret in my life," Grover said.

Grover said one of his biggest obstacles was the fact that he didn't live in Los Angeles. He could not leave his medical practice in Houston so he began writing screenplays at home.

Another struggle for Grover, as an actor, was his ethnicity. Born in a town near Delhi in India, Grover realized that a majority of the parts he would be offered were over-the-counter roles.

"We get the 7-Eleven clerks -- that kind of stuff, so basically out of impracticality I wrote about six scripts," Grover said. One of the scripts was a dark cult thriller called Unspeakable. Grover wrote in a dark, disturbing role for himself.

He also concentrated on writing a part that he thought a big name actor could play.

"I always liked Dennis Hopper. I like the crazy roles he used to play, so I kind of wrote him a little crazy role," Grover said.

Once Grover finally got the script into Hopper's hands, he said that Hopper loved it and the role and immediately backed the project. 

"Once (Hopper) got involved, then it brought this huge level of other Hollywood people that were interested," Grover said. Hopper was not the only big name behind Unspeakable. Dina Meyers from Starship Troopers, Jeff Fahey, who has directed episodes of CSI and Alias, and Antonio Calvache, cinematographer for In the Bedroom, are some of the other notable names involved with Unspeakable. Grover believes the combination of talent is the reason the film was so successful.

He said Unspeakable stood out to the Hollywood studios was because it looked like one of their films.

"We used kind of guerrilla tactics to make our movie look like a huge Hollywood project," Grover said.

Grover got a chance to get his hands in the postproduction process as well because Fahey had other obligations. Grover said the experience opened his eyes to another side of the film making process and helped him grow as an actor and a screenwriter.

Although Grover took time off from his practice to shoot the film, he said most of the editing was done in Houston.

"Instead of playing golf, like most doctors, I was editing my film," Grover said.

Grover submitted a rough cut of the Unspeakable to the Houston World Festival and won a gold medal. The film was picked up by Metro Goldywn Mayer Studios and RS Entertainment in the United States and was released nationally earlier this month. The film premiered in Houston on Friday at selected theaters but will only run for a short time.

Grover is building from the Unspeakable experience and has already won the grand prize at the Houston World Festival for his latest screenplay, Lazarus Rising, and is starring in an international film called Koffe.

Although Grover is becoming more successful in the film industry, he said he could never see himself leaving his practice behind.

Grover said he was not looking to win critical acclaim with Unspeakable because he believes it would cheapen the experience he gained from making the film and not given him a point from which to grow.

"If you get too successful, (after the first film), you have nowhere to go but down," Grover said.

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