An Unlikely Path - From ESL to the Toronto Film Festival–Olivier Lafont

By Chad Laws (AES Communications Specialist)

In 1987, a seven-year-old boy walked into a third-grade classroom at AES having just moved from Lyon, France. He didn't speak a word of English. He would never have known his acquisition of a new language, at this new school, would fundamentally change his life. 

He'd need it. Today, Olivier Lafont is a French author, screenwriter, and actor living in Paris whose career spans continents, languages, and creative disciplines. His first fantasy novel, Warrior, was published by Penguin Random House. He has written an Indo-French feature film that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and went on to win seven international awards. He has also acted in Hollywood and Indian films, including 3 Idiots and Guzaarish. None of it, he says, would exist without AES.

Looking back, Olivier traces much of that unlikely journey to his years at AES. Olivier’s family came to Delhi following his father's posting to the French Embassy. His path started in an ESL classroom, taught by a teacher he still remembers fondly, Mrs. Ooman. Today, Olivier Lafont writes novels in English and acts in English-language films. Looking back, he recalls learning that first foreign language as "somewhat of an existential challenge." He quickly reached full fluency by the end of that year.

For a seven-year-old who couldn't order lunch in English, language support wasn't just a nice thing to have; it was the difference between disappearing into silence and eventually finding, in that same language, a voice distinct enough to win international film awards. That premise sits at the center of what AES means by a culture of belonging, in which every learner's academic, social, and emotional growth is supported by the entire AES community, not just one EAL teacher assigned to them.

Finding the Story

The seed was planted early, and by accident. In fifth grade, his teacher read aloud from Brian Jacques' Redwall each afternoon, and something clicked. "From then on, I dug out every fantasy book or series I could find at the library or in Delhi bookstores," Olivier says, "and the 800-page novels I walked around school with earned me the odd stare or two." Reading turned to writing almost immediately. By high school, he'd written 500 pages of an unfinished novel. The boy who'd arrived unable to say a sentence in English was now the kid nobody could get to stop writing in it.

That early fascination with fantasy eventually became a professional career. Years later, Olivier's first published fantasy novel, Warrior, would be released by Penguin Random House. His writing has since expanded well beyond, with works including Oop and Lila Lost in the Scarabean, The Rise of the Midnight King, Sweet Revenge, and Purgatory: The Gun of God. The trajectory is striking: a child searching the shelves of the AES library for his next fantasy adventure would eventually become the author creating those worlds himself.

Finding the Stage

Acting came a little later and more deliberately. "My formal acting education began with Mrs. Sen in seventh grade," he recalls, when AES first let students choose their own electives and theatre became an option. But it was his high school English and Drama teacher, Mrs. Thomas, who changed the direction of his life — casting him, a ninth-grader, in the lead role of The Royal Hunt of the Sun, alongside co-director Mrs. Gilroy-Scott.

"It was during the production of this play that I decided to become an actor," he says. Olivier was deeply saddened to learn of Mrs. Thomas's passing, in part, he says, because of how influential she was in his decision to pursue both writing and acting as careers, a debt that outlasted the classroom by decades.

That decision eventually took him far beyond the AES stage. Olivier went on to work in both Hollywood and Indian cinema, appearing in films including 3 Idiots and Guzaarish. His career has continued to move fluidly between writing and performance — between the page, the screenplay, and the screen.

What the "Bubble" Gave Him

When asked what shaped him most at AES, Olivier doesn't point to a single class or award. He points to the atmosphere. "The AES community was a very wholesome one," he says. "That term can be considered unglamorous by some, but when you're young and beginning to grapple with life and your part in it, it is a critical part of how you shape your view of the world."

That grounding, he says, is now load-bearing in his work. As a novelist willing to explore difficult moral and ethical territory, he credits AES with giving him the center of gravity to do it well. "I can explore controversial aspects of a moral or ethical theme from a very centered place," he says, "because I know what is good and wholesome in part from my time at AES."

His academic drive arrived a little later than his creative one. Olivier says he had no particular feelings about academic excellence until seventh grade, but once it took hold, it never let go. "The thrill of discovering new information about history, science, culture, the human mind... of how to weave that into my writing or acting work to present a new perspective on things and create art of the highest possible level", that thrill, he says, traces directly back to AES's culture of pursuing excellence, joyfully. 

Olivier's journey began with a language he didn't know and a classroom in which he initially couldn't participate. It eventually led him to Penguin Random House, the Toronto International Film Festival, and film sets in Hollywood, France, and India. Along the way, he also earned degrees in English Literature and Theatre from Colgate University in the United States, graduating with academic distinction, reflecting the academic confidence that emerged during his AES years alongside his creative ambitions. It's a habit of mind he's never really put down: notice something, get curious about it, chase it until it turns into a scene, a character, a story worth telling.

A lesson for life 

For Olivier, Mrs. Ooman, Mrs. Thomas, and the AES culture taught him much more than fluency in English and acting. They gave him the confidence to use his voice. Asked what he learned at AES that mattered most, Olivier doesn't cite a subject or a skill. "The most important lesson I learned was gaining faith in myself," he says. He arrived as a culturally and linguistically displaced seven-year-old. Nine years later, he left having found a confident identity that carried him from a silent third-grade classroom in Delhi to stages and screens around the world.