Barkhad Abdi Captain Phillips Story Of Struggle Shows Dreams Can Come To Pass In Tinseltown

Barkhad Abdi Captain Phillips: The story of Barkhad Abdi, who played pirate leader Abduwali Muse, is Captain Phillips is in many ways inspiring. A struggling actor suddenyl bursting into international acclaim because of a high-profile and life changing role. But the road to where he is today didn't come without a cost, starting with his family’s escape from Somalia.

Abdi shared that his family escaped the war-torn country via Yemen and they then settled in Minnesota where there’s huge Somali populace. He was seven years old when his family left the country.

Before making it on film through Captain Phillips, the Somali America actor was driving a limousine for a living but was also involved in directing some music videos.

Abdi shares with Huffington Post that he got the part from a cold casting that was announced on TV.

“Yeah. It came on TV, you know? I was just at my friend's house. I knew the story, but I didn't even know exactly the story. So it just comes on TV -- Tom Hanks, local TV, local Somalis -- cold casting was going on. So I go there and there's about 700 people or more there. Yeah, and it's a long line. I had over 100 people ahead of me,” Abdi shares.
“And I write my name and when it came to me they gave me a paper saying, ‘OK, you study this part. You study the lines and you come back tomorrow.’ The next day, I come back and they said we either can call my own group or they'll put us in different groups.”

He decided to call his own group and practiced. After several auditions, they ended up meeting Paul Greengrass, the film’s director, who then told him and his group that he got the part. Abdi says that he has never acted before “Captain Phillips.”

The film he took part in eventually became a blockbuster hit and his role earned him accolades and nominations from prestigious award-giving bodies. He won Great Britain’s equivalent of the Oscar’s as a supporting actor and he was invited and was present at the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, and the Academy Awards where he also earned a nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Earlier, news broke that Abdi was struggling while gaining fame, having used all the $65,000 fee paid to him for his role in the film. He was said to have been subsisting on an allowance and was on loaned clothes and a paid-for chauffeur while he was in Los Angeles during the award events. There was also news that he was interrogated while returning from an international trip for immigration reasons.

The bad news didn’t last long, however, as projects and offers was on a roll for Abdi. To date, he is expected to be in three projects, according to IndieWire’s story below.

“And Abdi, who picked up an Oscar nomination this year, for his supporting role in Captain Phillips, has already banked one starring role, playing famous South African marathon runner, Willie Mtolo, in an upcoming historical drama centered on his life, and, more recently, joined the cast of another project - Judd Apatow's Trainwreck.

Now we can add a third project to his burgeoning slate: Eye in The Sky, a thriller set in the morally murky world of military drones, which will be directed by Oscar winning South African director Gavin Hood (Tsotsi).”

Aside from clinching all these projects, he’s also a spokesperson for Adeso, an organization devoted to the development of African countries.

Barkhad Abdi’s story is definitely one in a million, but is still proof that some dreams can still happen in Tinseltown.