"What kind of a name is that?” the voice coach asked at the end of the lesson. The name on the check he’d been handed by his student didn’t match the young actor’s European-sounding stage name.
The actor hesitated. He was fairly new in town and leery of any missteps. “Umm, my grandfather was Middle Eastern,” he said.
The actor said the room temperature seemed to drop. The teacher took him aside and spoke urgently. “Look,” the teacher said, “I see big things for you, but if you tell people this, you will not work in this town.” Recently, the actor landed a prominent role in a big studio film. But he still feels compelled to keep his heritage under wraps. Only his closest friends know his ethnicity; he tells others that his parents are Italian, French, anything but the truth.
“I’m really proud of who I am, but I’m constantly having to lie about it,” said the actor, who didn’t want to reveal his name for fear that he would be relegated to playing terrorists, the new Arab acting ghetto.
Arabs and Arab Americans in Hollywood live in an interesting time. The appetite for Middle Eastern stories and themes boomed after Sept. 11, 2001, and grew again with the ongoing grind of the war in Iraq. But the roles suddenly being created for Arab-heritage actors often are limited to those of terrorists or are otherwise so poorly drawn that actors must swallow their pride to take them. And that’s if they even get offered the parts.
Some in the community still see the changes as a sign of progress.
“There is more work out there for the Arab actor than 10 years ago,” said Ismail Kanater, a Moroccan actor who has been in Showtime’s “Sleeper Cell” and the now-canceled Steven Bochco series “Over There.” “Even though we get actors complaining about terrorist roles, there is a natural interest in the region. That will open doors.”
At least one actor made that interest pay off. Omar Metwally played a Palestinian militant in “Munich” and got good critical response to his role in the current film “Rendition,” in which he plays an Arab American trapped in a war-on-terrorism nightmare when he becomes suspected of being a terrorist.
Tony Shalhoub, the Emmy-winning star of “Monk” who’s of Lebanese descent, recalled his first television gig playing a terrorist on a 1986 episode of “The Equalizer.” “I did it once, and once was enough,” he said.
Writer-director Hesham Issawi, an Egyptian, said the increase in the quantity of Arab roles hadn’t been matched by an increase in quality. “The roles are bigger, the scenes are bigger, the money is better. But it’s still a terrorist role.”
Yasmine Hanani, a young Iraqi American actress, has played roles in “Over There” and “Sleeper Cell.” Her character in “Sleeper Cell” beheaded an FBI agent. “The thing about playing terrorists is they exist too. It’s real, even if it’s only half the story,” she said. “If I don’t do it, someone who knows less about my language and culture will.”
The undisputed champion of the Arab terrorist role is Sayed Badreya. The burly, bearded Egyptian-born actor has played an array of menacing characters in a 20-year Hollywood career. He’ll appear with Robert Downey Jr. in next year’s “Iron Man” as an Arab arms dealer who kidnaps the hero.
Badreya recalls when he first arrived in Hollywood in 1986. “I couldn’t work. I was too handsome,” he laughs. “So I put on some weight and grew a beard, and suddenly I was working every day and playing the ‘Angry Arab.’”
Some of the younger Arab newcomers to Hollywood look down on Badreya’s career as one spent reinforcing stereotypes. Badreya, however, makes no apologies.
“I never played something that didn’t happen. We hijack airplanes, I play a hijacker,” he said. “I do my work. I’m not going to sit and cry about it.”
Still, even Badreya remembers some bad moments. He played a terrorist and also consulted on the script for the 1996 Kurt Russell-Steven Seagal action film “Executive Decision.” Badreya used his contacts at his local LA mosque to connect him with a Puerto Rican mosque to shoot a wedding scene, with Muslims there playing extras.
“We told (the locals) it would be a positive portrayal of Arabs,” he said. “The wedding scene was just like the start of ‘The Godfather’; it was beautiful.”
The film’s script also called for a moderate Arab ambassador character who helps the heroes defeat the terrorists. Both that character and the wedding scene were cut from the film. “They didn’t want to see good Arabs,” Badreya said. “I got a lot of heat at the mosque from that one.”
A young crop of actors, writers and directors wants to create overtly Arab or Arab American-themed films, sometimes joining forces to do so. One actor calls it HAM: The Hollywood Arab Mafia.
The desire for an Arab-themed hit is a constant refrain among many in the business. “Somebody just needs to do it on their own like Spike Lee did it,” said one young Arab.
One cause for optimism: The surprise success of the 2005 Palestinian film “Paradise Now,” a tale of two suicide bombers that was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe. The film’s director, Hany Abu-Assad, has since moved to Hollywood.
“Hany kicked in all the doors,” said Nizar Wattad, a young Palestinian American screenwriter and University of Southern California film school graduate who is working with Abu-Assad on his follow-up script. “Now he has to prove he can be marketable. If he knocks one out of the park, it could really open the floodgates.”
But self-produced and -funded Arab films face one striking obstacle: The Arab community - in America and the Middle East - tends to shy from funding movies.
“There’s a lot of rich Arabs in America,” Issawi said heatedly. “Movies are considered a hobby. It’s not a real investment… the community doesn’t believe in the power of the media.”
