March 18 – CLARKSVILLE – A local Indian grocery store owner doubles as an actor and stuntman.
Inder Kumar has worked in Hollywood for almost 24 years. Kumar has been in the Clarksville area for 26 years, and during that time he started acting as extras in films. Now he has starred in more than 300 roles in different films.
Starting out as an extra in these roles, he eventually started acting in movies and then later he started doing stunts. He’s been doing stunts for about ten years now.
“I always wanted to work in movies,” Kumar said. “I always had this thing in me and I was like, ‘Okay, you’re going to start working in films.'”
Some great movies he has starred in and done stunts in include Furious 7, Captain America, Sully and more. The actors he has done stunts for are Vin Diesel, Tom Hanks, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Hart and many more.
Acting and stunt work aren’t Kumar’s only interests. He also opened the first Indian grocery store in southern Indiana, called Spiceland. The store is at 706 E. Lewis and Clark Parkway, Suite G in Clarksville.
He opened the store nine months ago to make Indian food easier to find for residents of southern Indiana.
“I’ve been in this area for 26 years, we didn’t have an Indian store,” Kumar said. “People had to shop in Chicago or they had to go to Louisville or Atlanta because there wasn’t too much of an Indian community.”
Kumar added that the Indian community is growing in southern Indiana. He wanted to be able to support the growing Indian community and provide an opportunity for people outside the community to try Indian food, snacks and drinks.
The store also has many kinds of flour, rice, fresh produce and meat as well as snacks from India.
“People love it,” Kumar said. “We have fresh food to go every day, we have over 600 different spices.”
The money he earns from his acting and stunt work goes back into the store in the form of buying more food for people to enjoy and grow his business.
His family loves the acting and stunt work he has done over the years, but when he started doing stunts 10 years ago, they were scared for him.
“Before, they were like ‘Oh, this is so scary, you’re going to hurt yourself,'” Kumar said. “Now they are used to it.”
When doing stunts, Kumar only does driving and gun stunts. He dislikes doing jumps and other similar stunts because he has a metal rod in one of his legs.
From his automotive stunts, he was able to drive cars such as Bugattis and BMWs.
“On the Captain America set, we totaled over 150 cars,” he said. “It was like Lexus, Mercedes, all kinds of new cars.”
Two of his favorite actors to work with are Vin Diesel and Tom Hanks. He said that Diesel is a very humble and down to earth person.
“Tom Hanks, he’s a great guy,” Kumar said. “I grew up watching his movies and when I was shooting ‘Sully’ with him, when he came on set, I started crying.”
