Golden Globe-nominated actor Tahar Rahim was blown away when he read the script for The Mauritanian. The legal drama is based on Mohamedou Ould Salahi’s memoir ‘Guantánamo Diary’,  a true story of his experience of being held for 14 years with no charges being leveled against him in the Guantánamo Bay detention camp.

Rahim told HFPA journalist Sam Asi how it was portraying Salahi. “When I met him it was almost hard for me to believe he’s been through this because he was so charming, cracking jokes, having a big smile from ear to ear, spreading light. I was like “wow”, and I needed to catch this.” 

Rahim wanted to play Salahi as authentic as possible. “I couldn’t be me, no, out of respect to him because it’s a composition, it’s someone that’s alive. I had to be able to convey authentic things to the audience, because it’s his story. I didn’t want to diminish him in any way.”

Even when he was observing Salahi he trusted the screenplay written by M.B. Traven, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani. “I knew that the story would unravel in this way. My challenge was not to fall into a portrayal of someone who plays guilty at the beginning, so then it flips and surprises the audience. I was, “don’t fall into this trick” because the movie, the way it’s shot, the way it’s written, the mood and director Kevin Macdonald, wouldn’t make it. So what I had to do is to be like Mohamedou, to believe in my innocence from the second one.”

Listen to the podcast and hear why he wanted to go to the extreme with the torture scenes in The Mauritanian; how he describes Mohamedou Ould Salahi and how Salahi was able to find the wisdom to forgive; how was it playing a serial killer on the TV show The SerpentThe Looming Tower’s character Ali Soufan; what Arabic dialect was difficult for him; how he got interested in acting and how his family reacted when he was pursuing acting; what he did when he didn’t have money to go to the movies; how he got his break in the entertainment business; why he didn’t move to Hollywood after The Eagle and waited until The Looming Tower came out before he worked again in an American production; and why he likes the new Hollywood.

This podcast was recorded before the Golden Globe nominations.