Throughout award season, Barkhad Abdi’s inspiring story of going from driving a limo to earning an Academy Award nomination was often trotted out as proof anything can happen. Barkhad now says the journey wasn’t so glamorous — and left him broke.
In a feature for The New Yorker, reporter Dana Goodyear said Barkhad was paid a lump sum of $65,000 when filming finished two years ago. That money is mostly all gone. To make matters worse, Barkhad quit his job at his brother’s cell phone store shortly before the movie premiered in October 2013.
“How I thought about it was, like, When the movie came out, reviews either gonna be good or bad,” said Barkhad. “Either way, I cannot be working here.”
As exciting as award season was for the new actor, it was also a financial strain.
“When Abdi is in Los Angeles to promote the film, he subsists on a per diem, good at the Beverly Hilton, where the studio likes to put him up,” Dana said in her story of the actor’s allowance. “The town car is available only for official publicity events. His clothes are loaners. Recently Abdi requested that he be allowed to stay at a commuter hotel near LAX to be closer to his friend, a Somali cabdriver from Minneapolis, who shuttles him around for free.”
Although Captain Phillips is currently Barkhad’s only credit, that seems set to change. The BAFTA winner is talks to star in The Place That Hits the Sun. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Barkhad would play South African runner Willie Mtolo. The role wouldn’t be a big stretch for Barkhad: Similar to the actor, Willie went from a relative unknown to an overnight sensation when he won the 1992 New York City Marathon.
