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Omid Djalili You'll know the face even if you don't know the name; Omid Djalili has appeared in some of the biggest box-office hits of recent years such as The Mummy, Gladiator and The World is Not Enough. From playing comedic Arabic henchmen, Djalili now has a couple of meaty roles under his belt: playing opposite Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow in the eagerly awaited Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow which opens shortly, and portraying Pablo Picasso in Modigliani, with Andy Garcia in the titular role of the Italian artist and sculptor.
Djalili also co-starred with Whoopi Goldberg on the US sitcom Whoopi and is currently touring his new one-man stand-up show, Behind Enemy Lines, written in the aftermath of September 11th. Djalili started his show business career doing stand-up ten years ago, becoming a Edinburgh Fringe Festival favourite with the shows Short Fat Kebab Shop Owner's Son in 1995 and Arab & The Jew in 1996. Pixelsurgeon chatted to him about comedy, movies and touring Iran.
PIXELSURGEON: You're often billed as "Britain's only Iranian stand-up comedian". Are you happy with this title or do you find it a bit narrowing?
OMID: I think it's crap to be honest; I think it's the media. I keep going on about how it's the media and then I looked at my manager's website and he'd put it up! I had a go and said what are you doing? What's the matter with you? Every bloody question I get is are you the World's funniest Iranian comedian? My God! That really doesn't do it justice... but in one sense it's good because it keeps expectations down: people think, well, he can't be that funny. I'm as English as they come, so now I play on it. The first ten minutes of my show is just this jokey wild Middle-Eastern character, to play on the stereotype and when I reveal who I really am, it couldn't be more English, really...
Do you find some people are surprised if they're familiar with you from some of the big films you've worked on where you're putting on a bit of an accent, like The Mummy or Gladiator?
Yes, they are surprised. At the beginning there were howls of surprise, but now it's okay that bit's over, let's see what you really want to talk about. Now, wherever I go, a quarter or a half of the audience has seen my show before, or they've seen me somewhere before, so that whole Middle-Eastern bit takes on a new ironic twist. But I'm not the only Iranian comic now, there are a few others around: quite a few stand-ups who are at the Open Spot level. It's something really for the media to box you in.
Some comedians have a depressive streak, or started comedy but avoid bullying; what made you start doing comedy?
[Laughs] Yes, I did that as well. That happened a couple of times at school. There were these boys of sixteen who kept picking on me for some reason, and I used to make them laugh. One of them was called Enis, and I'd say with a silent P, and he never got the joke. And I'd do that that Arabic sand dance thing and then they'd start laughing for some reason, and that was one way out of it. I always tried to use humour to protect myself, but after a while I was one of the biggest kids at school anyway, so no-one really picked on me.
I think the Iranian revolution that happened in 1979 damaged my confidence somewhat with the images of Islamic Fundamentalism and so on. I associated that with me, so I went into my shell for a while. It was only when I was in my mid-twenties that I came out of it. I suddenly got very funny!
So I think partly bullying, and partly my dad, because he's a very funny bloke.
How did that then translate into becoming a performer on stage?
I was always a performer, I always did shows from when I was fifteen, but stand-up... I gave stand-up a go in '94, ten years ago, and it was a very crap show. Most people start by doing five minute open spots, and they develop into ten minutes, twenty minutes. I went straight into an Edinburgh show, which I called the Short Fat Kebab Owner's Son and that was it. And everyone thought I was Harry Enfield doing his kebab shop owner character. I wore tails and a white bow-tie, it was appalling. It was like an actor being a crap raconteur telling stories that didn't have punchlines. It was really bad, but somehow I got encouraged. After a run in Edinburgh I felt confident enough to do ten minutes at the Comedy Club. In fact if you took the best ten minutes from my Edinburgh act, you'd have a pretty good show, so I was up and running, I was off straight away. Ten minutes became twenty minutes and within a few years I was the headline act up and down the country.
I didn't take comedy seriously until 1999 when I started having discussions with comedians and listening to people like Lenny Bruce and thinking, oh my God, he's fantastic, and I realised there was more to this than just being some kind of mainstream Arab crowd pleaser. And it became even more serious after September 11th, and that whole Autumn of 2001 I tried to develop my stuff. So it's been an interesting transition from a one hour show just being silly to a two hour show which is a little more thoughtful. But it's still silly: Godzilla impressions, belly dancing and odd singing, just to keep it like a good night out. I don't think I have the words to keep people rapt for two hours just with what I say, very few comedians do, so I like to mix it up a little to make it a bit more fun.
Who are your comedy heroes, stand-up or otherwise?
Kelsey Grammar, in Frasier, as far as comedy acting is concerned. For a defined character, he is unsurpassed. I'm a big fan of George Carlin. You might not agree with everything he says, in fact I agree with most of what he says, but you can't help but be astounded by his technical ability. He doesn't stutter or um or ah: he's phenomenal. I wish we'd seen more of Bill Hicks before he died. I think Billy Connolly is still very funny. I love Eddie Izzard, and Jackie Mason, I'm a big fan of his. He's very underrated: some people think of him as this mucky Jewish comic, but he's not at all. He's quite thoughtful.
You've had great success with your stand-up shows in the UK and the US. What do you think the secret of your success has been?
People are trying to move to the more universal when you go mainstream. I still try and keep my comic integrity but try and make it universal. I veer away from any particular political stance, I try and make it more humanitarian. And I think people particularly like my energy. I'm always very aware people have paid a lot of money and you want to give them a show. You want to make sure that this room is the place to be for them to be on that night and to make people feel that they are a part of something special, rather than here's some bloke and his ego. You try and make it more inclusive. That's how you make stand-up such a wonderful experience where people feel uplifted and entertained, and in my case slightly educated because they are seeing a fresh perspective. That's why I've been so successful, because I give everything. I still get nervous, my mouth goes dry.
Are there great differences between the audiences in the US and the UK?
I think the UK audiences are a little bit more... sophisticated. In America, they've seen so much stand-up on television, stand-up is on TV every night on four or five different channels, so people are quite used to going to a live experience and sitting passively. And just like they might be bored by something on TV, if they are bored by something in a live situation, they just sit there and take it, whereas in the UK, people are much more active and heckle. It's a far more interactive experience in Britain. In America, they're more straight-laced, I suppose. But if you have a storming gig in England and a storming gig in America, they're both storming gigs.
Did you find a difference in how you were perceived after September 11th?
Yes, absolutely. I always believe in life that if someone asks you questions, you have to answer them. If someone accuses you of something, you have to answer them. Even the slightest hint of wrongdoing, you have to make a statement back. So after 9/11, there was a real expectation of what kind of material I might be talking about, what is my reaction to it. I was the most high-profile Middle-Eastern performer, so my shows at the Bloomsbury Theatre two weeks after 9/11 were absolutely packed to the rafters. There were two or three hundred people every night being turned away. Every person in the comedy industry wanted to know what I had to say. Some people wondered, will he have the same show? Will he say something controversial?
So what did you do?
My first twenty minutes was devoted to 9/11, and that's why I'm doing the show now it went down so well, I thought I'd do a show just completely about it, and the issues about it. And I suppose I answered them and I gave them a humanitarian viewpoint. Some stupid people expected me to get up and say, yes, America got what they deserved, but I couldn't do that. That whole event is beyond politics, it had to be dealt with on so many different levels. It's not a black and white, America is evil issue, there are too many shades in between. And so I tackled those problems thinking that everybody else would, but to this day, nobody else has. There's one great comic called Colin Murphy who did about ten minutes about it; he's the only one I've seen who's done more than a quick cursory gag and then let's move on. I thought everybody would talk about it, but most people shied away from it and I've done the core of a whole 90 minute show about it.
So, people did see me differently, some expected my career to die. I became an unofficial spokesman for the Middle-East by doing that show. It was a very difficult period, I must say.
Are you ever recognised while shopping at the Supermarket? And do people expect you to be funny?
I'm recognised in the most bizarre places and for the most bizarre things. When I was in New York, someone shouted, "We love your new show with Whoopi, but your were much better in Taxi!" I thought, fair enough, they obviously think I'm Danny DeVito, butI'm much taller than Danny DeVito! Some people think I'm Alexi Sayle, so they say, "loved you in the Young Ones!" And then people recognise me for very different things. It's very bizarre, all the big stuff I've done is just going to come out, and the show with Whoopi was very recent, so people recognise me for the lesser stuff I've done, which is quite frightening. I can take it in the supermarket, when a kid says that he saw me in The Mummy, but if I ever become really big, which I've never thought of myself as becoming, it's going to be fucking awful! I can't think of anything worse!
I had to wear dark glasses and a hat when we were shooting the Whoopi show: it was shooting in New York and it was about New York, so every single New Yorker was aware of that show, whether they liked the show or not, it didn't matter. Everyone had seen a few episodes and could recognise me, so I couldn't even go to MacDonalds! I didn't like losing my anonymity! What was encouraging in America though was when they did see me, they were very happy. In general, they liked the show and they liked me in it, which was good.
I only had one guy recognise me from The Calcium Kid, which was a movie that bombed. He said, "I thought you were very good in The Calcium Kid" which was great because I didn't think anybody saw that film! When the reviews came out, the film got such a mauling that most cinemas pulled it!
There's a rich tradition of stand-up comics becoming actors; how did your transition come about?
I was always an actor and got into stand-up by accident. It was like one of those hot springs, where you think will it be too hot or too cold, but when you get in, you think it's quite nice actually. It's never been a transition for me: acting's been very simple, mostly because I've not had very challenging roles. The most difficult role was playing Picasso opposite Andy Garcia, in a film coming up called Modigiliani. That was tough because it wasn't me trotting out the old Arab scumbag character, I had to think about how I looked, how I sounded. They said they wanted a soft Spanish accent and on the first day of filming my first line of Dialogue was Hey, what are you doing, man? and they said "Cut! We don't want Tony Montana in Scarface!"
It's a great thing to grow as an artist and be challenged like that! But there's never been a transition: I've always been an actor that did stand-up and a stand-up who could act.
Has Modigliani been your favourite movie to work on?
My favourite movie by far has been Modigliani because of working with Andy Garcia. The reality is, that while it's very glamorous to be in a movie like The Mummy or Gladiator, The Mummy especially because I worked wit the leads for four months, and with Gladiator I got to work with Oliver Reed and Russell Crowe, the truth is that you're only there for four or five days and you piss off back to England. With a movie like Modigliani, where you work with Andy Garcia almost every day was a wonderful experience and to work on a character that had so much depth made me think yeah! I was thinking, I really can't do this Arab scumbag character any more, but you just have to be patient and these roles will come if you hang around long enough. Modigliani is a movie I'm proud of because it says something, it gives you a real insight into the artist's brain: the whole struggle between suffering for your art and being truly excellent. A wonderful project to be part of.
How was it working with Stephen Sommers on The Mummy? How did he compare to Ridley Scott on Gladiator?
They are all completely different. Even Tony Scott and Ridley Scott, two brothers: Tony Scott is really upbeat, very excited, a workaholic, doesn't sleep much, maybe two or three hours a day, whereas Ridley Scott is far more relaxed, monosyllabic even, but completely generous to the actors, he would say, "I suggest we move here and pick you up and you can do whatever you like". Stephen Sommers, who you'd think would say less is more, or even more is more, his thing was "more is MUCH more!" You could never do enough for him. You'd scream at the top of your voice, as if your head would explode, and he'd say, "hey, let''s do it again, but a bit more!" They are all so different. Even Mick Davis, who directed Modigliani, who's an ex-Celtic footballer, would be like [adopts Scottish accent] "Come on, man, give me some more! You're fucking Picasso, give it some welly!" He was like a football manager!
There's been a lot of hype and excitement surrounding Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow; what role does your character Kaji play in the movie?
Basically Jude Law's best mate: ex-Legion, the man on the ground whenever they need to go somewhere, they send me off as reconnaissance. They send me off to Tibet, so I'm there waiting for them to sort things out. Looks like it's going to be a weird, special effects blockbuster. It looks spectacular.
Most of the acting was done against green screens with the computer generated backgrounds added later. Was that a challenge for you
It was because you have to trust what the director says, you have to feel that they're going to get the special effects right and what you're doing is correct. Having done four films last year, it's the one that lives least in my mind because all I remember is walking around with a green screen and wearing lots of warm clothing in a hot studio. I have no proper image of what it's going to look like. I've seen bits of it when I've gone in for voice overs. I'm looking forward to being surprised.
Did you ever think you'd end up a movie star?
Nah, not a movie star. I wouldn't call myself a movie star at all. I'm a good character actor lucky enough to be in some very big films. Gladiator is the sixth greatest film of all time, The Mummy is something like the 30th highest grossing movie, I've done a Bond movie. They're all smallish kind of roles, so I've been fortunate to be the right person at the right time.
How do other Arabs find your material?
Very well. Some come down hoping to bring out the knives, but, for example, the other night in Bradford there were women in headscarves laughing their heads off. And to be honest, Muslims and Middle-Eastern people in general are the first to let you know that they like what you do. It's a very Middle-Eastern thing. Apart from one or two very isolated incidents over six or seven years, there's been nothing.
So you'll be doing a tour of Iran anytime soon, then?
Errr... [laughs] I tell you what, though, I found out recently that I have a fan-base over there; Iranians are very well aware of me. I've not been invited yet. I'd sell out an arts centre in downtown Tehran... if I was invited I'd go. But if they did invite me I wouldn't be sure if it would be to listen to me or kill me, hehehe, so I'll leave that one alone for the time being.
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