Keslassy, Elsa (15 February 2023). "Tahar Rahim to Play French Music Legend Charles Aznavour in Biopic 'Monsieur Aznavour' (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety . Retrieved 4 June 2023. Some of the military advisors that we use in the film industry are more like military fetishists so their information needs to be taken with a pinch of salt but Mohamedou was able to help me catalogue it [all] so we knew which photos were real, which were not, and which were appropriate to his story," Carlin says. "The whole thing is about deprivation and that is what we were trying to get at." You and Kevin have known each other for a long time, you’ve kind of built this relationship over time. You’ve talk about how you really tried to immerse yourself in the torture process as much as you could as an actor for the torture scenes, and that’s hard for you, but also I think you have to have a lot of trust with the director to do something like that. So, what did you guys do together to make those scenes happen? Not only did he workout rigorously on set to match Sobhraj’s muscular and often shirtless physique, Rahim also took advantage of all the period-perfect costumes, wigs and accessories he got to wear while shooting on location in Thailand. “It was fun to time travel in a way,” he says, revealing that he took the whole wardrobe home with him. “I took them all; I took the glasses and the shoes.”

I think when things like this are happening, that can feel far away or that are so awful, that it’s kind of hard to contemplate, we kind of protect ourselves by not thinking so much about these people, about them as specific individuals. And, I think what this movie does, and I imagine what you’re feeling was reading the script is you read this, and you feel Mohamedou is a person, you feel this really individual person going into it. So, when you’re going into it as an actor, how do you kind of work to establish that connection with the audience? And if the role is in English, so much the better. “I feel freer acting in English. Your face moves differently, your mouth, even your body. It makes you forget about the habits you used to have as an actor. It puts your soul in a different place, so you rediscover what you were at the very beginning.” Which was? He grins and swivels in his chair again. “A virgin.” Waterboarding, Starvation, and Great Acting: Tahar Rahim Could Be In the Oscar Race". IndieWire. 7 January 2021 . Retrieved 20 January 2021. Still, he was apprehensive, so the star did what he says was his usual due diligence process: He requested a Skype call with the producers. He asked to speak the director – in this case, co-creator Alex Gibney, the noted documentarian ( Going Clear) who’d also signed on to helm the first episode. He read the first two scripts they sent him, and admitted that yes, this was in fact different from the usual things he was offered. And yet, Rahim was still not convinced. “I didn’t know the arc of the character,” he says, appearing slightly sheepish at the memory. “I didn’t know his full story, or where he was going. The first few episodes, it’s more of a presentation: This is him entering the bureau, getting established. After that, I didn’t know what would happen.” Tahar Rahim et Marie-Josée Croze, prix Dewaere-Schneider". Le Parisien (in French). 29 March 2010 . Retrieved 11 April 2023.He was flattered that we would be including his part of the story’ ... Benedict Cumberbatch as Stuart Couch. Photograph: Graham Bartholomew/AP

Rather than being dragged along in the celebrity slipstream immediately after A Prophet, he took his time weighing up offers, eventually starring with Channing Tatum in The Eagle, set in the second century AD. It would be a stretch to imagine a part further from kingpin Malik than this Gaelic-speaking warrior daubed from Mohawk-to-toe in loam. “I’m always trying to go in a different direction,” he says with a mischievous smile. A lot of scripts I was sent had to do with terrorism. I didn’t want to be a tool for that sort of thingSlahi praises Rahim’s portrayal, although he points out: “No matter how bad you make the torture scenes, the reality was much worse. Because you cannot put on screen 70 days and nights with no sleep. And this is the easiest part of the torture.” Slahi – who learned English from his Guantánamo guards – can’t explain the state he was in. He became very vulnerable – “like a child”, he says. “But when you embrace your weakness, that’s when you become strong.” I wanted to come as close as I could to the actual conditions of this man without being in danger Tahar Rahim Although being in an exotic location had its perks (“Every weekend we could on an Island or something, so it was like a holiday,” he says), it did keep him isolated from his wife and two kids. “To be honest, I missed them every day,” the actor says, eventually developing a ritual that every other day, “I would talk to my kids and then go work out. It helped me let it out.” STXfilms The film, Rahim agrees, "pinpointed a real problem in French cinema, to do with the representation of minorities. It really changed things. But I don't like the term 'minorities', it stigmatises." He makes a point of avoiding stereotypical roles: "I've always refused to play terrorists. If it helps change things, OK – but not if it maintains the status quo of what appears in the media." Actor and character couldn’t be more different. A broad, Robert De Niro-style grin regularly engulfs Rahim’s face, reducing his eyes to little dashes. But, as Sobhraj, he scarcely smiles and doesn’t move unless it’s imperative. “Tahar is such a beautiful soul,” says the former Doctor Who star Jenna Coleman, who plays his accomplice, Marie-Andrée. “The way he played Charles was very contained, which is not Tahar at all. He isn’t a still person: he’s really quite fidgety. He was going to the gym because he had to get rid of this dark, dynamic energy he was carrying with him.”