CJ Paschall sat down and talked with Omid Abtahi who plays Salim in ‘American Gods’ and will star in Jon Favreau’s ‘The Mandalorian’. Here is an excerpt from CJ’s Interview with Omid where they discuss ‘The Mandalorian’ and the Star Wars Universe. The full interview will be released next week.
CJ PASCHALL: You’ve got another project you are working on currently which is ‘The Mandalorian’, the Jon Favreau series that is coming to the Disney+ Service, are you able to tell us anything about that project?
OMID ABTAHI: No (laughs), not at all, the only thing I can tell you is my experience with Star Wars, when I got offered the role, I hadn’t seen any of the Star Wars films other than The Last Jedi because some of my friends said “hey let’s go see this movie” and I was like sure I haven’t seen the other movies but whatever so The Last Jedi was the first I saw of that series. But when I got offered the role, I realised I had to go and watch them now and essentially binged it over 2-3 days and fell madly in love with and I am now beating myself for waiting so long to watch it.
CJ PASCHALL: Was it something they asked for you to go back and watch the previous ‘Star Wars’ films?
OMID ABTAHI: No that was just me doing the proper research, there was no I could go into a franchise like this without knowing this. I know it’s a huge and passionate fanbase and I know there is some people who don’t like the newer films but I really really enjoyed the newer films aswell, I don’t know if that’s an unpopular opinion or not.
CJ PASCHALL: Don’t worry this is a safe place, it’s definitely not an unpopular opinion but they can be a topic of controversy among the fandom. In a word, if you are able to sum it up, what can fans expect from ‘The Mandalorian’.
OMID ABTAHI: I just think fans are going to be very happy with the final product and the work going into it, I know it’s a TV Series but you wouldn’t know that stepping onto the set, they are putting a lot of money and effort and a lot of use of technology that I’ve never seen, and from the scripts and the final product in, I think it’s something to be proud of.
CJ PASCHALL: There’s so much technological innovation with the movies too.
OMID ABTAHI: Exactly, and that’s another thing going back to what you said earlier, being on that set and being around Jon Favreau was another moment where I was like “oh my god is this really happening to me?” I’m a huge admirer and fan of Jon Favreau as an actor and director, just being in the same room as him, I had to get over being starstruck.
CJ PASCHALL: From what I understand also, this is a labour of love for him too, he voiced a Mandalorian in ‘The Clone Wars’ and from what I’ve read online, this is his favourite part of the universe to play around with, hopefully that’s something you can see and feel on set.
OMID ABTAHI: Absolutely, and it’s a labour of love for everyone I worked with, everyone has an attachment to this series that worked on the crew, that doesn’t always happen especially with the first season of a show, people are just working but with this, I would come to set and crew members would be wearing Star Wars shirts. I think everyone is very passionate about it.
CJ PASCHALL: How has it been with the cast, because it’s an insane cast with Pedro Pascal, big name in Hollywood currently, Carl Weathers, 80s action star, Nick Nolte, another actor of incredible calibre and then Werner Herzog, hows it like interacting with that cast?
OMID ABTAHI: It feels like everyone has been hand picked fro their unique abilities and personality traits, it’s such a unique group of talented individuals and you are just like Jon you know what you are doing. It’s one of the things I just can’t talk about much as this one storyline may intersect with this other storyline but it’s just going to be incredible.
