I’m very excited about visiting temples here

American actress and model Salina Gusmano is on her first trip to India. She is in the city to attend the soundtrack launch of her indie American film, Devil’s Night: Dawn Of The Nain Rouge, which also stars Kollywood actor Napoleon in a key role. She plays a nurse, a supporting character in the film, and appears as a cop in the music video made to promote the film.“I shot only for a couple of days for the film, so mine isn’t a major role,” she admits.
Salina has been part of four or five indie films, but says she’d prefer to go to Hollywood for work than move lock, stock and barrel there. “I find it congested over there, so I’d rather have my home in Michigan, where I’m from,” she adds.
But she has a lead role in the video, so she’s here to promote the soundtrack. “I’ve featured in four music videos earlier — I teach dance in Michigan — and this is my fifth one,” she says.
The actress says her exposure to Tamil cinema is limited to dancing to a few Tamil songs at an event in Texas. She remembers a couple of the songs — Konjum Mainakkale and Ven Megham, the Tamil version of Barso Re. “I had a lot of fun doing that. The dancing is quite different from what I’d grown up learning. So, we practiced a couple of steps, but with my dance background, I caught up very quickly. I like the beats. I had the food, interacted with the people, and found it interesting,” she says.
Having landed in Chennai only a couple of days ago, Salina says that she is yet to check out the city. “We are going to go out in the city soon and see what Chennai is all about… try out the food, check out places, like the snake park, crocodile farm, Mahabalipuram,” she lists out. One thing Salina says she is looking forward to is visiting the temples. “I’m very excited about it. I did visit a temple in Bali earlier this year, so I’m curious to see how different the Indian temples are from that one,” she says and adds that she’s not keen on the snake park visit, though as she is quite scared of snakes.