Arabic actors ‘are generally sought for thug roles’
Casting agents look for Middle-Eastern or Arabic-looking actors for “bad guy” roles on Australian television, an actor has claimed.
Budding actor Josh Farah says his Arabic appearance and big build have helped him secure some enviable roles in his short career, but invariably they involve playing the thug.
“I’m just not white enough to be in Home & Away or Neighbours, I’m too bad looking,” says Farah, who played a debt-collecting heavy in a segment of ABC’s The Checkout this month.
Farah had no previous experience when in 2012 he landed a part in the feature film Convict, and all of his subsequent roles have been what he describes as “the thug, the bodyguard, the bikie boss, the bad guy”.
“No matter what, I am cast as the bad guy,” he adds.
Farah, one of five children raised by Lebanese immigrants in western Sydney, says casting agents specifically ask for actors of Arabic appearance when a director wants a tough guy.
“When the casting agent sends the brief to my agent it’s “looking for a thug, needs to be six foot, built like a brick shithouse, preferably Middle Eastern looking”. And it says it in the brief. No one knows this, but it’s there in black and white,” Farah tells Media.
After Convict, Farah got a small part in the ABC series Rake as a fellow inmate of the barrister Cleaver Greene, played by Richard Roxborough. He recently played the part of a drunken wife beater in Deadly Woman, a crime show for Foxtel. In his latest film, The Tail Job, Farah plays an “intelligent heavy” alongside another actor of Lebanese background, Taha Salah. Farah says that Salah has a small build but he is also cast in bad guy roles.
“The director will say, ‘I need a tough looking bloke’. The first thing the casting agent says ‘let’s have a look at a bunch of Arab blokes — they usually play bad guys’. Like in the ABC production ( The Checkout), I was one of the heavies,” he says.
In episode 10 of The Checkout, Farah played the role of a debt-collector who was seen tying people up and threatening them with a blow torch, then putting their feet in buckets of cement on the edge of Sydney Harbour. Farah was joined by Daniel Cordeaux, who is of southern European appearance, though he spoke with a cockney accent.
What makes this selection even more of an issue is that all 12 “reporters/writers” on The Checkout are of caucasian appearance. ABC spokeswoman Rachel Fergus declined to respond to questions on whether the producers of The Checkout had tried to recruit more diverse talent for this show, or whether they had engaged in racial stereotyping in episode 10. She directed The Australian to the ABC’s Equity and Diversity Plan for 2012-15.
Farrah says that one of the few Australian actors of Arabic background who has moved beyond bad guy roles is Firass Dirani. While he started out playing John Ibrahim in Underbelly, Dirani has more recently played the role of a former bad boy footballer in Nine’s series House Husbands.
Farah has come a long way from working in the family cafe three years ago. At the time, director George Basha got talking with Farah’s sister who said Josh had a natural talent for acting. Farah got the part in Convict after auditioning against more than 50 actors. Convict dealt with corruption inside the prison system and the experiences of Aboriginal and Middle Eastern inmates.
“I’d love to play the good guy for once, the detective who saves the day,” Farrah says.
Source: www.theaustralian.com.au