Egyptian actor Sayed Badreya is a big man in Hollywood

Adam El-Gammal
For Al-Shorfa.com
2008-09-17

Actor Sayed Badreya arrives at the premiere of Sony Pictures You Don't Mess With The Zohan. (Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)

If 50-year-old Sayed Badreya’s face seems familiar, it is because he has been playing Arab terrorists in Hollywood blockbusters for the past 20 years.

He may be a victim of racial typecasting in the movie business, but Badreya is not complaining.

As one of the few established Arab actors in the American movie industry, Badreya has acted in hits such as Three Kings, The Insider, Stuck on You, and most recently, Don’t Mess With The Zohan and Iron Man, in which he played the proverbial Arab bad guy. He has also had bit parts in TV shows such as The West Wing, Numb3rs and Alias, where he, of course, played angry Arab terrorists or angry Arab officials.

Adding fuel to the fire of typecasting, Badreya has just wrapped up his role as Saddam Hussein in Oliver Stone’s W, a chronicle of President George W. Bush’s life to be released in October 2008.

“I never played someone who didn’t exist,” Badreya told Egyptian monthly Egypt Today in its January 2008 issue. “Portraying a villain doesn’t make you root for him or his behaviour. Stereotyping has always been out there whether in Egyptian or American cinema.”

Badreya added that despite his reputation for playing bad guys, his roles in movies such as Stuck on You and Shallow Hal showed that he could play comedic characters as well. Born in the coastal city of Port Said in Egypt, Badreya studied English at Emerson College in Boston in 1979, then acting and directing at New York University in 1980 before moving to Santa Monica six years later.

Sixteen years and more than 20 TV and movie roles later, he teamed up with Egyptian filmmaker Hesham Issawi in 2003 to make a short film, T for Terrorist.

Actor Sayed Badreya attends a press conference for the movie AmericanEast. (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

The movie’s success convinced Issawi and Badreya to reunite for a feature-length film in 2006, AmericanEast, starring Golden Globe-winning Lebanese-American actor Tony Shalhoub.

The movie tells the story of Arab-Americans living in post-9/11 Los Angeles and their struggles to survive socially and politically in the changed environment.

“This is my first starring role after years of supporting roles in big Hollywood productions,” Badreya told Egypt Today, adding that as the movie’s co-writer, he decided to paint a bleak and realistic portrayal of the movie characters’ lives.

AmericanEast examines long-held misunderstandings about Arab and Islamic culture. The characters’ struggles with life post-9/11 were close to Badreya’s heart as an Arab actor. “In the first few months following [9/11], Arab actors, including myself, were worried because nobody in Hollywood would hire us,” he told Egypt Today. “But Americans have a short memory, and they ultimately can forgive. Although Arabs are still a minority in the American society, we were still capable of establishing ourselves as part of its mosaic life.”

Badreya’s recent roles in You Don’t Mess With The Zohan and Iron Man have helped put him in the spotlight alongside big Hollywood names such as Adam Sandler, Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr., with whom Badreya shared most of his Iron Man scenes.

“On set, Downey [Jr.] is a very generous method actor,” Badreya said, “allowing other protagonists to flourish around him because he believes in the workability of the whole scene: If the villain is good and believable, the hero is likewise.”

Despite his penchant for Arab terrorist roles, Badreya says that he has turned down roles that were blatantly stereotypical, such as the new Ridley Scott movie Body of Lies starring Leonardo DiCaprio and currently in post-production.

“I felt like [the movie script] was a little bit repetitive from past Hollywood films about the Middle East,” Badreya told Egypt Today. “And […] good Arabs featured in the script are those who help the Americans, and bad Arabs are those who fight for their lives.”

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