Naveen Andrews knows how to invest a performance with a quiet intensity so distinctive, it's tough to imagine anyone else playing the role. Take, for example, his part in the upcoming indie comedy Easy. As he is playing sensitive poet/professor-type John, one might expect Andrews to spend the whole movie gazing longingly at leading lady Marguerite Moreau. And gaze he does, but it's so much more than mere moony-eyed pining. There's a subtle, underlying playfulness to his performance that hints at hidden depths within the character's soul.
Calling from the lush Hawaiian island of Oahu, where he is currently filming ABC's smash-hit series Lost, the London-born actor is happy to chat about the diversity of roles he currently finds himself inhabiting: Before the year is over, Andrews will have put his stamp on the aforementioned sensitive poet, a mysterious Iraqi military veteran, and a charming rich guy with a penchant for bursting into song and dance. The opportunity to play so many different things, says Andrews, is an actor's dream. "That, to me, is the ideal," he says. "That's what we as actors want. It's rare when that comes along--you seize it when [it does]."
Andrews showed promise at the tender age of 5, when one of his teachers suggested to his parents that young Naveen might make a good actor. His parents' reaction wasn't exactly encouraging: They were "utterly mortified," says Andrews. "They didn't really think there'd be any money in it. They didn't see it as a career. That stayed with me until comparatively recently; the idea of it being a career has only started to take shape in the last few years, I'd say."
Andrews honed his craft at England's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and he has since been featured in a number of British and American productions. He may be best-known for his sensuous supporting turn as Kip Singh, Hana's (Juliette Binoche) lover in The English Patient, and his lusty role as the opium-loving king in Kama Sutra. Fans still swoon when these performances come up, but Andrews shrugs off his sex-symbol status. "It's the work, really--just do whatever the work requires," he says. "At drama school they used to cast me as the old man a lot. I had to wear padding, and my hair was gray, and I was perceived a little differently."
Andrews doesn't exactly play a senior citizen in writer/director Jane Weinstock's Easy, which hits theatres Nov. 26, but the role still shows off yet another facet of his considerable range. As soulful poet John, Andrews romances the film's cynical central character, Jamie (Moreau). Also vying for her affections is the good-natured Irish comic, Mick (Brian F. O'Byrne). In a typical big-budget romantic comedy, the plot would degenerate into a battle between the two men for the heroine's heart, and the winner would be clear from the outset. Easy, however, offers something a bit different: a gently-paced, true-to-life ensemble piece in which every character is carefully drawn and three-dimensional.
This well-rounded approach appealed to Andrews. "Oh, my God, it [is] nothing like the big-budget, so-called comedies," he says. "There was something much more real about it. I like things that are just not conventional. I like things that spring out from left field." The actor also appreciates the film's multifaceted approach to storytelling. "Life is not black-and-white," he says.
Andrews' role on Lost is also sketched in shades of gray. The actor plays Sayid, one of a large cast of characters who suddenly find themselves stranded on an island after a plane crash. As a former member of the Iraqi Republican Guard, Sayid possesses impressive technological know-how, making him a leader among the castaways. But, like everyone else on the island, the character has his secrets, and Andrews isn't necessarily privy to all of them. Though he says he knows a bit more than the viewers at home, he's also learning about Sayid as we do. "It really is like shooting in the dark, especially coming from film," he says. "With film, it's a finite period of time: You have a beginning, an arc, and then an end. You obviously plan around that. But with TV, man, you have to make certain decisions and choices, which are usually very broad ones, and just hope to Christ that they're the right ones. I think so far it's been OK; so far it's been working."
In December, Andrews can be seen singing and dancing in writer/director Gurinder Chadha's (Bend It Like Beckham) newest work, Bride and Prejudice, which gleefully weaves Jane Austen into a rollicking Bollywood backdrop. "[In] the opening musical number, I'm singing and dancing in front of 40 dancers in a sort of weird amalgam of ... I suppose it's Indian traditional dance mixed with MC Hammer," says Andrews, chuckling.
He has myriad interesting roles under his belt, and surely more on the horizon, but Andrews isn't one to let success go to his head. He prefers to remember how his love of acting grew out of the freedom of imagination he had as a child, back when that strangely prescient teacher thought he might one day become an actor. "[You should] always hold on to what you felt as a child, what made you go into the business in the first place," he says. "It wasn't to get famous, or anything to do with celebrity, but for the joy of acting. It's very hard to remain vulnerable in this business. Hold onto [that] vulnerability, that golden thread that put [you] there in the first place. That will see you through."