June 25, 2025 By Carol Britton Meyer
Eric Randall of “A Nice Indian Boy” fame — a movie that recently played at the Loring Hall Theatre — is a Hingham High School Class of 2007 graduate, now living in New York City.
Randall wrote the screenplay for “A Nice Indian Boy” — a romantic comedy about Naveen, a gay doctor who meets and falls for Jay, a white orphan raised by Indian parents. When Naveen brings Jay home to his parents, the whole family has to adjust their expectations in order to plan the gay Indian wedding of Naveen’s dreams.
“It’s a story of acceptance — about a family figuring out how to add one more seat to the table,” Randall told the Hingham Anchor.
He is now working as co-executive producer on the CBS series, “Elsbeth,” about “an astute but unconventional attorney who uses her unique point of view to corner brilliant criminals alongside the NYPD.”
“I like the public nature of what I do,” Randall said. “After writing an episode, it’s great to hear from my friends and family about what they thought about it when it’s shown on TV a few months later.”
He got his big break — and his first screenwriting gig — working on the Fox TV show, “Bones” while living in Los Angeles.
At the time, he was pursuing a career in film and tutoring on the side to make some extra cash. “One of my client’s fathers was executive producer of ‘Bones,’ and she connected us and I was hired in an assistant role,” Randall explained. “I got promoted to the screenwriting staff over the course of the series.”
“Bones” was an American police procedural drama television series that ran on Fox for 12 seasons — from 2005 to 2017.
Film well received
Most recently, “A Nice Indian Boy” has been well-received. “The film got some nice reviews from critics and audiences, which is gratifying,” Randall said. “I heard from a number of old high school friends who saw the movie at the Loring, along with some of their parents and former teachers. It was a nice way to reconnect. I was glad to be able to share the movie with Hingham audiences.” The film can be rented or purchased on various platforms.
The showing of the film at the Loring was especially meaningful to Randall because he watched many movies there.
‘Things have come full circle’
He remembers seeing “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” at the Loring — “which was a model for the ‘A Nice Indian Boy’ movie,” he said. “Things have come full circle. It’s cool that the movie was shown at the theater where I watched films growing up in town.”
“A Nice Indian Boy” is based on a play by another writer, Madhuri Shekar. “I adapted the play at a time when I was engaged to my now-husband after producer Charlie McSpadden floated the idea with me, and it became a reality.”
As a screenwriter, Randall “loves getting to tell stories, and I think the screen is a really powerful medium that reaches so many more people [than others].”
‘I love the storytelling part’
He first had an interest in screenwriting when he was a journalist. “I loved the storytelling part — making someone laugh or hearing from a reader. I also was obsessed with watching TV and films growing up, but I never thought about who writes them at that time.”
After some of his college friends moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film, “it clicked into place that this was where my talents would be best used — incorporating the storytelling part of journalism with what was for me, a more exciting media.”
His journalism background comes in handy with his screenwriting. “I am a faster writer because of that experience and I know how to go out and find interesting stories!” Randall said. “Screenwriting is your own version of storytelling.”
‘The keeper of the story’
Randall considers a screenwriter to be “the keeper of the story. When everyone else in the production is involved in other ways — actors bringing their characters to life, staging the play or show, and designing the sets, the screenwriter is thinking about what the story line should be to tell the audience, and the best way to tell it,” he shared.
Because the “apparatus” of making a film is “so big and complicated, those involved can lose sight of the bigger picture, “whereas the screenwriter knows the story of what the scene is trying to get across. The script lays out where the scenes are taking place, what the sets look like, the action lines, and blocking,” Randall explained. “The screenwriter is the first person to see the film in his or her head from start to finish and how to translate that to the page.”
Among his favorite memories of growing up in Hingham besides going to the Loring Hall Theatre is of participating in Hingham High School drama club musicals. “That was my earliest foray into the arts. I also enjoyed sailing on Hingham Harbor.”
He returns to Hingham several times a year to visit his parents, Virginia and Alexander Randall.