Oscar nominee Barkhad Abdi was one of the breakout stars of the awards season for his critically acclaimed turn as a Somali pirate in Captain Phillips. But a new profile in the New Yorker reveals the Mogadishu-born actor has been struggling to make ends meet since being catapulted into the Hollywood spotlight.
Abdi was paid $65,000 two years ago for his role in Paul Greengrass's true life thriller. Despite having been put up by studio Sony at the plush Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, he has been living day to day on expenses and wore borrowed clothes for a number of awards season functions. A taxi driver friend from Minneapolis, where Abdi's family settled at the turn of the century after emigrating from Somalia, has been driving him to events for free.
Abdi, 28, is now planning to move to Los Angeles and is in talks to star in a film about South African runner Willie Mtolo, who competed in the 1992 New York marathon. But his struggle to get by led him to return to a job selling mobile phones for his brother in Minneapolis immediately after Captain Phillips wrapped. The actor, who was also nominated for a Screen Actors Guild prize and won the Bafta for best supporting actor for his performance, eventually decided to quit his job on the day of the film's premiere.
"How I thought about it was like, 'When the movie came out reviews either gonna be good or bad. Either way, I cannot be working here,'" he told the New Yorker.
Captain Phillips was nominated for a total of six Oscars, including best film, but did not take any prizes at Sunday night's ceremony. It has so far made more than $217m at the box office against a budget of $55m.
In other Oscars news, it has been confirmed that Ellen DeGeneres' turn as host drove the Academy Awards broadcast to its highest US viewing figures in 14 years at the weekend. Revised ratings data showed the audience for the telecast on the ABC network was 43.7 million, the highest since 2000 and eight percent higher than Seth MacFarlane's controversial 2013 outing.
