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Prince Naveen, also known as the Hunter, currently known as Drew, is a character on ABC's Once Upon a Time. He débuts in the twelfth episode of the seventh season and is portrayed by guest star Jeff Pierre.
Prince Naveen is based on the character of the same name from the Disney film The Princess and the Frog.
History
In the kingdom of Maldonia, Naveen and his older brother do their royal duties together with plans of also ruling together, however, this comes to an end when his older brother is killed by a massive alligator. This spurs Naveen into tracking the beast across the kingdoms with hopes of using his enchanted spear to kill it. ("A Taste of the Heights")
Naveen stumbles across Princess Tiana, Cinderella, and Hook while they are examining evidence of the alligator's recent presence in the area. Tiana believes the creature is too big to actually be a gator, to which Naveen suggests if she is skeptical, she can leave. When Tiana retorts that the only person leaving is him, Naveen laughs and remarks on her fiery temper as she reminds him of himself. Upon being warned by Hook about his uncouth manner in speaking to a future Queen, Naveen introduces himself as a prince who has been tracking the beast across the kingdoms with his enchanted spear. Tiana remains unimpressed, though she lets him join them, with her own plan to show him what a real hero is like. As the journey continues into nightfall, Hook gets into a disagreement with Naveen as he doesn't see the difference between a crocodile and alligator. Tiana, thinking Naveen is getting them lost, prepares to lead the hunt instead, but the prince soon spots drag marks on the ground, implying someone was seized by the alligator. He comments that the game is still afoot, annoying Tiana who believes he is joking around when her people's lives are at stake, to which he tries to humor her by stating it's something hunters say. After finding a man who was wounded by the gator, Tiana sends Hook and Cinderella to get him to a healer while she has Naveen join her in cornering the creature. To lure out the alligator, who is underwater in the bog, Naveen sits across from Tiana in a rowboat as they both wait. He tells her the real reason he is hunting the gator, and how his brother's death left him burdened with ruling alone and without people he could trust. Seeing as she is in a similar dilemma and not knowing who she can trust, Tiana suggests they start an alliance. Naveen agrees to this by taking a swig of his drink, but Tiana sees something of his that resembles one of Dr. Facilier's possessions, making her suspicious of him. As Naveen denies any involvement with Facilier, the gator rocks the boat and pushes him into the water. He is bitten underwater by the gator, but Tiana manages to use the spear to kill it. Naveen succumbs to his injury but Tiana makes Facilier revive him, however, Facilier then teleports him to a place where Tiana will never find him because Naveen now owes him a debt for saving his life. ("A Taste of the Heights")After being affected by the Dark Curse, Naveen becomes Drew, Sabine's cooking school classmate who comes from a family with a restaurant business. He flunks out of school and leaves Hyperion Heights to work for his family's restaurant, although Sabine believes he chose to drop out of school. At some point, he is recruited by Mr. Samdi to come back to Hyperion Heights and gain Sabine's trust. Drew finds Sabine as she is preparing her food truck for the upcoming food fair, which he also intends to partake in with his own food truck, Flamin' Cajun. Sabine buys a tray of his beignets in order to sample what she is up against, and upon discovering his beignets are too sugary compared to hers, she is confident her food truck will top his. However, Samdi ruins things by tipping off a police officer about Sabine's missing food safety permit, which puts her out of the running as Drew's competition. Sabine, believing Drew did her in, confronts him about his sneaky tactics. Drew insists he didn't do it and instead reveals Mr. Samdi is likely the one responsible as he offered him guaranteed success with his food truck. Sabine is furious, berating Drew for having everything handed to him in his life while she has had to work for it only to lose it all in one swipe. To make it up to her, Drew gives her his food safety permit so she can keep her food truck business open. He agrees with her earlier assessment of him and reveals he actually flunked out of cooking school instead of dropping out. Drew also admits he was not actually good at cooking and he would rather help her succeed instead. After a night helping Sabine at her food truck, Drew goes to dump the garage, where Samdi comments on how well he's done to get Sabine's trust. Drew doesn't want to continue with deceiving Sabine though Samdi insists he will. He then asks what Samdi wants from Sabine, to which the latter states she will eventually be of use for him to get something he has wanted for a very long time. ("A Taste of the Heights," "Chosen")
Drew goes on to work regularly for Sabine's food truck and has shifts on even days. ("Breadcrumbs")
At some point, Samdi wakes up Drew so he remembers his past life as Prince Naveen, though when this happens is unclear. During a workday in the food truck, Sabine praises Drew for his ability to fry up a good beignet. Drew notices they are all out of batter, but luckily, Sabine has an extra batch left over. While Sabine goes to fetch her "secret ingredient" to add to the batter, Drew is intimidated by Samdi into fulfilling the debt he still owes him. By the end of the night, only Drew is left at the food truck after Sabine has gone home. He gives Samdi a freshly baked beignet he made himself, though he doesn't understand why the witch doctor specifically wanted one from him when he could've gotten one from Sabine. Samdi explains Sabine trusted Drew enough to teach him how to make the beignets, and that while trust is a powerful thing, breaking that trust is even more so. As Samdi takes the beignet out and taps some of its sprinkled sugar onto a voodoo doll, seemingly imbuing it with magic, Drew insists he doesn't care what Samdi is up to as long as their ties are severed now that his debt to him is fulfilled. Samdi disagrees, stating they are done when he says so and warns him against having to remind him again. ("Chosen")
During the evening, security footage from inside a bank across from the police station catches Drew on camera around the time Nick is killed by Samdi in the police interrogation room. Drew's fears of being next on the witch doctor's lead him to sneak into Nick's apartment to try and find something to use as protection, however, his presence is noticed by Rogers and Henry, who realize someone is in the apartment with them. After knocking down Rogers, Drew sprints outside and attempts a getaway but the latter apprehends him and questions him on why he was present near the police station while Nick was being murdered. Drew confesses his reasons for being in the apartment and insists Rogers has no idea how unimaginably powerful Samdi is. Thinking Rogers will believe him to be crazy if he tells him Samdi has magic, he instead urges the detective to take a closer look at Nick's manner of death to understand what he means. ("Chosen", "The Guardian")
That morning, Drew misses his shift at Rollin' Bayou, prompting Sabine to call Jacinda to fill in for him instead. While Drew is being held in the police interrogation room, he pleads with Rogers to let him go, especially considering the last person in police custody died in the same room. Rogers explains he did review Nick's report, which revealed the implausible way he died by receiving a stab to the heart from the inside. Drew states Samdi did it with magic, and he insists that while such a thing doesn't exist in a land without magic, pockets of it have made their way to this world. He further brings up the fact Nick was killing off women who were witches in a coven and declares there is a war brewing that no one in Hyperion Heights is safe from. ("Flower Child")
Sometime later, Drew is kidnapped by Samdi to his office, where he is tied up in a closet. Sabine and Jacinda are tipped off about Samdi's involvement in Drew's disappearance after Lucy finds a tarot card in a bag that Drew once used. The women confront Samdi at his office before he directs them to look in the closet. After they discover Drew inside, Samdi orders them to step into the closet too and forces them to comply by using a voodoo doll to hurt Sabine. ("Is This Henry Mills?")Trivia
Production Notes
- His casting announcement describes him as "a fun loving, freewheeling adventurer who cares little about the dangers of the world. At least, that's how it appears. In truth, Naveen's easy exterior hides a heart struggling with a tragic past. One he is determined to make amends for, even if it means sacrificing everything he loves in the process".[1]
- His casting call also describes him as "a thirtysomething African-American".[2]
Appearances
| Once Upon a Time: Season Seven | ||||||||||
| "Hyperion Heights": | "A Pirate's Life": | "The Garden of Forking Paths": | "Beauty": | "Greenbacks": | "Wake Up Call": | "Eloise Gardener": | "Pretty in Blue": | "One Little Tear": | "The Eighth Witch": | "Secret Garden": |
| Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| "A Taste of the Heights": | "Knightfall": | "The Girl in the Tower": | "Sisterhood": | "Breadcrumbs": | "Chosen": | "The Guardian": | "Flower Child": | "Is This Henry Mills?": | "Homecoming": | "Leaving Storybrooke": |
| Appears | Absent | Absent | Absent | Mentioned | Appears | Appears | Appears | Appears | Appears | Absent |