U Turn proved to be the right turn for Roger Narayan. For the actor, who’s made appearances in shows like How I Met Your Mother, Castle, The Bold and the Beautiful and others, was suddenly thrust into the spotlight in Indian cinema, with U Turn, which is to be screened at the ongoing Kannada Film Fest in the city. “I knew it was an exciting script, but I didn’t expect it to become the blockbuster it has,” says Roger.
Despite his eclectic filmography that includes playing animated characters (Happy Feet 2), starring in an English-Hindi-Tamil-Spanish cult film (Hola Venky!), voicing a character in the first animated Sanskrit feature film (Punyakoti) and being part of a documentary series (The History of Hindu India), Roger is actually an engineer from BITS Pilani. Ask him how he decided on the degree and he’ll simply say, “I didn’t decide in terms of degree; I made the choice based on the college. BITS Pilani has a vibrant cultural scene.”
Roger’s heart was always in the performing arts. He took the stage when he was five, and starred in several independent productions while growing up in Bangalore. In college, he worked on sketch comedy, poetry, creative writing and improv. So it isn’t a surprise that after an M.S. from the University of Maryland, and during a technical marketing stint in Silicon Valley, he juggled a classical actors training from the reputed American Conservatory Theater. “Drama school was good because it gave me some occidental exposure — Neil Simon, Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, Samuel Beckett, Henrik Ibsen.”
In 2011, he moved to Los Angeles to do films and television because, he says, “the scene hadn’t opened up here.” After building his filmography, bagging the title of Mr. India California, training to be an aircraft pilot, mastering the martial arts and becoming the face of commercial campaigns for Microsoft, McDonald’s, Dell, DreamWorks, etc, Roger realised that there were “many interesting slice-of-life stories being set in this demographic.” In 2014, he started signing Indian projects, and since then, has been shuttling between Indian cities and Los Angeles.
“Culturally, the process is very different here. Hollywood has a very formal process of casting — scheduling is strict and everything is usually planned beforehand. Here, the process is more organic and fun in its own way; I’ve learnt to go with the flow.”
Roger’s eclectic filmography looks all set to expand, given the projects he’s currently attached to: a Marathi film, a Malayalam film, a Kannada film and a Tamil film. His latest Tamil-Hindi project, 417 Miles, has recently won the Golden Lion at the Barcelona Film Festival. He says he chooses his projects based on story, role and direction — in that order – and is particularly happy about the new breed of directors who’ve cropped up in Indian cinema.
“Malayalam cinema has a strong storytelling narrative, Marathi comes from a strong theatre background, Tamil cinema represents a wide range of sociology in its stories that traverse genres, while Hindi cinema offers possibilities from independent to commercial. I think of myself as a journeyman, traversing intellectual and emotional landscapes through different characters,” smiles Roger.
