GL Naga: A Naga actor who plays villain in Kollywood movies

DIMAPUR — He may not be a household name yet, but this talented Naga artiste from Jalukie, a small town in Peren district, has appeared in Kollywood movies for a record eight times.

Twenty-eight-year-old Lunglaiwangpou Gonmai, who goes by the stage name GL Naga, is excited that the latest Kollywood (a portmanteau of Tamil-language film industry based at Kodambakkam and Hollywood) film ‘Yaanai Nughathan’ is set to be released on April 21.

The movie is GL Naga’s eighth appearances in South Indian films and the first movie in which he clinched a middle role with dialogues.

In a conversation with Eastern Mirror, Naga, who speaks fluent Tamil, shared about his journey into the reel life and the struggles he had to undergo as a young boy.

Gonmai said he grew up in a broken family as his parents divorced when he was still a toddler, and for a short period he lived with his father and brothers.

But soon after, his father passed away and he had to live with his grandparents. Gonmai said he cannot recollect clearly what his parents looked like since his father died when he was still a toddler and his mother had left them. He was informed that his mother passed way in 2011.

While living with his grandparents, he had to drop out of high school due to financial issues and the small-town boy left for Dimapur to do part-time jobs.

Eventually, in 2014 he landed in Chennai in search of a better prospect where he worked different jobs.

While working as a waiter in the big south Indian city, a chance encounter with a movie director steered the career course of Gonmai, who confessed that he had always wanted to become popular from a young age.

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After seeing Gonmai’s appearance and physique, the movie director advised him to try auditioning for movies as people from the Northeast share similar physical features with the Chinese and that such features are in demand for various movie roles.

So In 2020 during lockdown period, he started going for auditions and joined the movie industry as a junior artiste.

Of the seven movies that he had appeared earlier, Gonmai said in two hit movies ‘Beast’ and ‘Golugolu,’ he acted as the main villain and got more than 10-minutes scenes in each movie.

Gonmai, who works as a hairdresser in a salon when he is not acting, said most of his movie roles are those of a villain of Chinese character because of similarity in physical features.

Affirming that acting has become his passion and that he will keep on acting as long as he gets roles, he also confided that given a chance, he would wants to explore into Bollywood too.

Gonmai is multi-talented as besides acting, he can also sing, rap and dance. He is also an avid youtuber.

He has a message to the youngsters of Nagaland: he encouraged them to chase their own dreams, not only the dreams of their parents, and to seize all the opportunities that come their way and focus on their future. “In my life, I dedicate my whole heart to Nagas,” Gonmai said and added that through his YouTube videos, he tries to make videos for Nagas and to be the voice of those who cannot voice out, with a motive to bring change in the state.