did you pretend to be sicilian for a while? idid, yes. i told people my name was chico and i was from palermo in sicily. the iranian revolution had happened so it had had an massive impact on me as a child the way people thought i was from a very weird culture. so, i think humour became a comfort. a weird culture, you say, and of course that is the way some in england at the time would have seen it but i wondered the degree to which you would have then sort of played into that notion of being a bit weird, a bit of an outsider in your early profession? in the memoir, there is this fascinating letter that you recount you wrote to a talent agency, and it goes like this. you said to the agency, i think the way forward is to go down the ethnic bit part route, i am quite adept at accents, you said rather immodestly, iranian, afghani, turkish, pakistani, i could even play a russian commandant or a bulgarian gymnast trainer, a slovak border guard.
to which you would have then sort of played into that notion of being a bit weird, a bit of an outsider in your early profession? in the memoir, there is this fascinating letter that you recount you wrote to a talent agency, and it goes like this. you said to the agency, i think the way forward is to go down the ethnic bit part route, i am quite adept at accents, you said rather immodestly, iranian, afghani, turkish, pakistani, i could even play a russian commandant or a bulgarian gymnast trainer, a slovak border guard. i can play french, german, american mafia boss, i m pretty good at regional british accents, too. so, you were pushing this idea that you could be put into a pigeonhole, i think you have later said the ethnic scumbag. yes, that was one of my firstjokes. i am an arab scumbag specialist but in the bond film, i did play the second azerbaijani oil pipe attendant, which is a major departure for me in my career! but here you are, walking
did you pretend to be sicilian for a while? idid, yes. i told people my name was chico and i was from palermo in sicily. the iranian revolution had happened so it had had an massive impact on me as a child the way people thought i was from a very weird culture. so, i think humour became a comfort. a weird culture, you say, and of course that is the way some in england at the time would have seen it but i wondered the degree to which you would have then sort of played into that notion of being a bit weird, a bit of an outsider in your early profession? in the memoir, there is this fascinating letter that you recount you wrote to a talent agency, and it goes like this. you said to the agency, i think the way forward is to go down the ethnic bit part route, i am quite adept at accents, you said rather immodestly, iranian, afghani, turkish, pakistani, i could even play a russian commandant or a bulgarian gymnast trainer, a slovak border guard.