Noah Watts.
Noah Watts is a Native American actor, and voices and provides motion and facial capture for the Assassin Ratonhnhaké:ton in Assassin's Creed III.[1]
Biography
Early life
A member of the Crow tribe and descendent of the Blackfeet nation, Noah Watts grew up in Bozeman, Montana. However, each summer, Noah went home to the Crow reservation to camp at Crow fair with his extended family.
Excelling in baseball, basketball, golf, tennis, and skateboarding as a boy, Noah also learned to ride horses, fly fish, and snowboard while living in the Rockies. As part of his connection to his Native culture, Noah has been a traditional Crow war dancer since he was six years old, occasionally competing in contests, but more often dancing for pleasure at Pow Wows.
Career
Watts has acted on stage since fifth grade, when he played the Scarecrow in a school production of Oz. In high school, he began developing and refining his acting skills in a variety of roles, which culminated in the part of John Proctor in The Crucible. Watts also worked on his acting craft in the form of high school speech and debate contests, putting the capstone on his high school acting career by representing Montana at the National Forensic League National Tournament. His performance of the dramatic monologue "Gas" by Jose Rivera, in front of 1,500 people, earned him fourth place in the tournament.[2]
High school dramatics were a catalyst for Noah's acting career, and as a senior, Noah acted in two independent feature films. First, Noah was cast in The Slaughter Rule, playing Waylon Walks Along, and a teenage Blackfeet youth, who was captain of a reservation high school football team. For Noah, one major challenge of the part was to speak the majority of his lines in the Blackfeet language. Just a few months later, he landed a second role as Herbie Yellow Lodge in the feature film Skins, directed by Chris Eyre. Portraying the son of an alcoholic father, Noah had the third lead part and shared scenes with Indian actors Graham Greene and Eric Schweig. It was then that Noah began to dream of a career in film.
Noah graduated from high school and won a scholarship to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles. After one semester at AADA, Noah was offered a part in a Chris Eyre film entitled Skinwalkers, playing a teenage gang leader and suspected murderer, a role far different from the shy, devoted son he played in Skins. This character provided Noah the opportunity to showcase his ability to play very different roles.[3]
The following summer in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, he performed the lead in the Southwest Repertory Company's production of the play The Indolent Boys, written by N. Scott Momaday. Noah's character was a young Native man in a boarding school in the 1800s, who was being trained to be a Christian missionary. The character struggled with an internal conflict between his Native culture and the Christian religion inculcated through the boarding school system.
His recent projects included an appearance on Literary Stages on KCRW in Los Angeles, reading a piece by W. P. Kinsella. In the Spring of 2005, Noah was cast in an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, entitled Kino and Teresa, where he played the fierce villain Eladio (Tybalt in the original play). This production was unique in that the entire cast, including the director and writer, were all Native American. Noah also finished making an independent film in 2006, entitled Montana 1933, which was filmed on location and set during the Great Depression. He played Joe Running Elk, a young man who lost his job working on the railroad, and began a life of adventure outside the law.[4]
Assassin's Creed works
- Assassin's Creed III (2012) - Ratonhnhaké:ton
- Assassin's Creed III: Liberation (2012) - Ratonhnhaké:ton
Trivia
- When Crows bestow a name, they also bestow a wish, a prayer for the name's recipient. Noah's uncle wished for him to lead a life of distinction that would be a credit to the Crow people.
- Watts is currently living in Los Angeles.
External links
- Noah Watts' official website.
- Noah Watts at the Internet Movie Database