New York, 17 Jan 2014 (SDN) –Few veteran actors might know how to react to Amy Poehler’s admonition that “there’s such a beautiful life lesson here, everyone. Sleep with your limo driver tonight — before he gets famous.” Or Tina Fey’s offer to come to her room: “I’m talking to you, Somali pirates. I am de captain now.”
But there was Barkhad Abdi, televised for the world to see, at his first Golden Globes ceremony, nominated for his first acting role ever — as the ringleader of the Somali pirates who hijack an American cargo ship in “Captain Phillips.” And he took their ribbing in stride.
“I loved that,” Mr. Abdi said on Thursday with all the nonchalance of a celebrity versed in the art of never acting like you care. “They make a great team.”
In other words, just another ho-hum day in the life of a newly minted Hollywood sex symbol.
But there are certain things for which the Cool Rule must be broken. For instance, one’s first Oscar nomination.
“I couldn’t sleep” the night before, Mr. Abdi admitted during a phone call from his room at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles. He watched the nominations announcement on television. “I started going up and down. I was jumping around. You know, I was kind of shocked.”
The movies love a good fairytale, and Mr. Abdi has one. Two years ago, he was working as, yes, a limousine driver in Minneapolis when he attended an open casting call along with some 700 other local Somalis for the roles of the pirates. After answering a few questions, they assigned him his character, he explained, and called him back with a group of about 40 others, including three of his friends. Realizing that each had been assigned a different part, they auditioned as a team, after which the casting director flew them to Los Angeles to meet the film’s director, Paul Greengrass. (But not its star, Tom Hanks: to escalate the tension, Mr. Greengrass insisted the men meet during their first scene together on the set.) Each of the four ended up being cast.
Reviewing the film in The New York Times, Manohla Dargis called Mr. Abdi’s performance “very, very fine.”
Born in Mogadishu, Somalia, Mr. Abdi emigrated with his family at 7 to Yemen to escape the civil war and then at 14 to Minneapolis, where about 14,000 Somalis live. His familiarity with pirates was limited to what he had seen on the news and YouTube, but “if you understand the motivation and aspirations of a character, you can be that character,” he said. “You can make it more believable.”
“And yeah, I totally understand his motivation,” he added. “He’s a man with nothing to lose, and he sees this as his chance, as his only way out.”
Despite the accolades, what’s next in Mr. Abdi’s new career is anybody’s guess. “I haven’t been offered anything yet,” he said. “I’m starting from scratch.”
Source: nytimes
