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FILM INTERVIEW: NOUREEN DEWULF

Star of Upcoming Movie 'The Taqwacores' Defies Categorization

May 4, 2010

Whoever said Indian-Americans are still trying to arrive in Hollywood have clearly overlooked one lady whose stunning looks and substantive personality make her hard to miss.

Or perhaps no one really missed her at all, and anyone who pays close attention to her ethnicity or religion is clearly missing the bigger point that Noureen DeWulf is a legitimate actress who is so good at what she does that we do not realize that we are not paying attention to her Indian or Muslim roots.

Just look at her resume – at the ripe age of 26, Noureen not only played the lead in an Oscar-winning short film but she has already worked on films alongside the likes of Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Lopez, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Ving Rhames, David Foley, Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid, Mandy Moore, Willem Dafoe and Carl Weathers.

She also managed to land on Maxim Magazine’s “Hot 100 List” in 2007 and Nylon Magazine’s “Top 30 Under 30.”

Add to that a filmography that includes the just-released romantic-comedy of The Back-Up Plan in addition to Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Ocean’s Thirteen, American Dreamz, 90210, Chuck, Reno 911! and CSI:NY; how can anyone focus on anything else beyond Noureen’s success?

Indeed, it is such success that Noureen herself is trying to focus on, and it was a laser type focus that took a little while to develop but eventually found its target.

Growing up just outside Atlanta in Stone Mountain, Georgia, Noureen always had aspirations of becoming a mainstream Hollywood actress, yet growing up in a household that was both Indian and Muslim, the young girl kept her dreams and hopes quiet amidst the “conservative” cultures that surrounded Noureen’s childhood.

“I always wanted to be an actress, but I just didn’t know how I’d do it because our culture is conservative,” Noureen frankly told Buzzine over a Friday morning breakfast. “I really wanted to do theater when I was in high school, but I wasn’t allowed to. So when I went to college, I took a lot of theater classes and then I graduated a year earlier and moved out here (to Los Angeles).”

It was during her days at Boston University that Noureen began to find herself as a talented thespian. In addition to taking theater-related courses at Boston University, she also began hitting her stride back home as she joined an Atlanta-based troupe during summer breaks.

“I went to Boston University and in between school, during the summer, I would go back (home) and perform with this theater group in Atlanta,” she recalled. “A lot of people told me, ‘You are wasting your time here in Atlanta. There is nothing for you here. You should definitely go to L.A.’”

But heading west to Hollywood was easier said than done. Sure, she wanted to be an actress, and she was finally in a position to make that dream slowly but surely a reality. Heading to Los Angeles, though, was no small measure and was quite the risky proposition, no matter how many people in Atlanta would have tried to urge her otherwise.

“I thought to myself, ‘I am not ready, I’m scared.’ I was really nervous to come out here,” she confessed to Buzzine with conviction. “You put yourself out there and perhaps you fail, then you have no job. I was kind of hesitant, but I made the leap of faith.”

In 2005, leap she did. Five years later, Noureen has yet to come down, and she is totally appreciative of just how high her career has escalated. And to think her first experience in Hollywood was — surprise surprise — an unpaid gig and a labor of love.

“Six months after I moved (to L.A.), I did (a short film called) West Bank Story, which three years later went on to win an Oscar. But at the time I was shooting it, I didn’t consider it a break whatsoever. I did it for free. I did it because I loved it.

It was a short film, and I didn’t think it was going to go anywhere. Then, after I did West Bank Story, I worked a feature film, and when that was done, I worked on a film that Steve Martin produced. After that I did American Dreamz, so I was kind of on a roll ever since I did that first thing, and that was all within six months after I moved here.”

Blessed with such timely fortune, Noureen takes extra pleasure in doing something so rare among Muslim-American actors and even rarer among Indian-American actors – the 26-year-old actress has been able to take on roles that defy stereotypes and expectations. Indeed, Noureen has starred in several blockbuster films not as a Muslim-American actress or an Indian-American actress but merely as…well, an actress.

Noureen DeWulf in burka in The Taqwacores on buzzine.com

“I feel I am in a real lucky position. A lot of actors do get pigeonholed into a box,” Noureen stated about how, for the most part, she has avoided being cast in “brown”-specific roles. “It is challenging and hard to not accept all the stereotypical roles that get thrown your way. For me, I’ve been really, really lucky because I have been able to play a lot of different parts.”

She added that she does not know the reasons for her crossover appeal. Perhaps she just has a look that is ideal for a wide array of roles, which include recurring appearances in TNT’s Hawthorne and MTV’s Hard Times of RJ Berger. Either way, no doubt Noureen has set the standard for actors with Indian or Moslem roots – a standard that she herself is about to surpass in the upcoming theatrical release of The Taqwacores.

In years to come, when Indian or Moslem actors are taking on serious roles irrespective of their ethnicity or religion (and people stop paying attention to such labels), many will look back and point to Noureen as the actress who blazed trails and allow the barriers to be broken.

'The Taqwacores' had it's US Premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival as on Official Selection.