Neville's extensive training includes the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts. His special skills include a football scholarship from Kent State University, and he was drafted by the Ottawa Roughriders. Neville used his outstanding basketball talents to choreograph "Due South", "White Men Can't Jump", and "Straight Up "Menace"". During the 18 years that Edwards worked as a high school history and physical education teacher in Toronto, he dreamed of becoming an actor. In the 1980's he began to take acting lessons at different colleges in the evenings and on his vacations. He joined different theatre groups he could find and started working in a string of amateur theatre productions and gradually built his acting career. Neville went on to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in California. His first big break came in 1997 when he became a regular in the TV series, "COVER ME". "It gave me the belief that I could make it as an actor. " says Edwards. In 1999 he gave up his high school teaching job and became a full-time professional actor. Edwards has had roles in the TV series "Tracker", "Robocop", "Drop the Beat", and "Due South". In the feature films, they are "My Name is Tanino", "Owning Mahowny", "Exit Wounds", and "Down in The Delta", as well as MOW's such as "10,000 Black Men Named George", and "Bad As I Wanna Be". Neville loves music, and loves to dance!
A moment with Neville Edwards about his role as Dr. Chagas in The Sherlock Holmes mystery "The case Of The Whitechapel Vampire".
The proud and noble naturalist Dr. Chagas is the police's prime suspect in The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire. Although Sherlock Holmes himself is unconvinced, Scotland Yard Inspector Jones, however, is certain that Chagas killed two monks of St. Justinian's Hermitage out of simple revenge and made the murders look like they were committed by a vampire demon. Jones and the angry mob gathered outside Chagas' door are convinced that Chagas is guilty because he is a foreigner and different and, moreover, he is a guardian of bats.
The Mob is also fueled by its own bigotry. In the 1890's, it was rare to see black men in London and people were afraid or distrustful of them. The mob's racism is inflamed by the mysterious vampire killings.
"When times get hard people look for outsiders to blame," says Neville Edwards who plays Chagas. "Nonetheless, Chagas is very surprised when the mob shows up because the reason why he's in London is to publish his research on bats, and that's all. All Chagas cares about is saving bats. These creatures are feared around the world and needlessly exterminated. He wants to educate people about the important role bats have in the natural world."
But Chagas is so single-minded and so determined that "even Sherlock Holmes suspects me because I risk my own safety for a colony of bats which I had discovered in London," says Edwards. He adds: "Chagas has no wife and children. Bats have become his kids and he wants to protect them."
For this reason, Chagas is the number one murder suspect. Several years earlier in British Guyana, Chagas' native land, an outbreak of rabies took its toll on the local population. Brother Marstoke, the head of a Church of England order that had founded a mission in that country, believed that vampire bats were the carriers of the disease and ordered to have them wiped out. His order went against the wishes of Chagas, who had been studying the bats. Soon thereafter, two monks were found dead with bite marks on their necks. Nearby, scrawled on the wall, were macabre messages from Desmodo, a local vampire demon, that warned of bloody revenge for the deaths of 'his children'.
"Right to the end of the film, Chagas is mysterious and it's difficult to say if he's good or bad," says Edwards.
At their first meeting, Chagas is dismissive of Holmes. "Chagas is leery of him because he doesn't know what Holmes wants. He thinks that Holmes is another harasser!" Edwards says. But Chagas eventually grows to respect Holmes, especially after Holmes reads up on bats and agrees with Chagas that bats are not dangerous.
Marstoke and Chagas were close friends in Guyana, before the killing of the bats.
"Marstoke didn't take my advice and I am still hurt and wary," says Edwards. In fact, Chagas will maintain to his last dying breath that killing the bats was avoidable.