Veteran actor Napoleon who has worked in almost 100 films and in all four South Indian languages, is now ready with his first English film, actually two films: ‘Devil’s Night’ and ‘Christmas Coupon’.
‘Christmas Coupon,’ directed by Daniel Knudsen, features Courtney Mathews and Aaron Noble in the lead. In this romantic story, Mathews plays a skating champ who is teaching skating to children. Noble is a hockey player. Napoleon plays the manager of the hockey player.
“I believe in my dreams and keeping in tune with that I hope to play the lead in a Hollywood film sometime,” said Napoleon during the promotional meet of ‘Christmas Coupon’ held in Chennai recently.
Looking back, the Trichy native, who now lives in the US, reminisced on his acting journey.
It was 1981, he remembers being in school thenو when he and four friends were noticed and offered a role by a producer and director.
“We declined it being unsure of our family’s reaction.”
But films came calling in 1991 with Bharatiraja’s ‘Puthu Nellu Pudhu Naathu’ where he played a 60-year-old in his debut film. Subsequently, Napoleon went on to play villain roles and even a hero too. The former politician — he was an MP in Manmohan Singh’s cabinet — said that he was proud to be the first Tamilian actor to enter Hollywood.
“It was a new experience shooting at -30 degrees in Detroit,” said Napoleon. “Learning the American slang did not come easy. Unlike here where delivery of dialogues are corrected in the dubbing studio, in Hollywood it’s live recording done and one has to be perfect while shooting.”
Napoleon was last seen in Tamil film in ‘Seema Raja’ and is currently listening to new scripts.
