Tahar Rahim’s mission as an actor is to push himself mentally, physically, and emotionally with every role. Over the course of a decade, Rahim has carefully plotted a career full of resonate characters, from his 2009 breakout “A Prophet,” in which he portrays an inmate who rises in the ranks within a French prison, to this year’s Golden Globe–nominated performance in “The Mauritanian” as Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a wrongfully imprisoned man at Guantanamo Bay in the aftermath of 9/11. Here, the actor discusses how he got in character to play Slahi alongside Jodie Foster and how he felt before stepping on a professional set for the first time nearly 20 years ago.
“Usually, I take my emotions, the emotions I've been through, my life experience, and I reach a pain that feels real and do what I have to do. In this case, it was the other way around. I would surrender to my feelings and my emotions, and that’s a very interesting way to perform.”
What was the moment you decided you wanted to be an actor?
Boredom led me to acting. I come from a very small town in the east of France and my childhood was perfect, but when I reached my teenage [years], I started to get bored. I started to go and watch movies a lot, but I couldn’t afford it five times a week, so I found a way to get into the cinemas via the backdoor. Then I discovered a new world. I loved the atmosphere: The chairs, the smell, sharing something with people that you don’t know, meeting people that you would never meet. It was something magical. It was a window to the world. Little by little, this dream started to fill me and it turned out to be a need. So I said to myself, listen, you’ve got to do this, this is the only thing you want to do, what you love, what keeps you interested. I went to study cinema in the south of France at university, and when I passed my exam I went to Paris and I had my bag, a couple of bills in my pocket, and I went to a hotel and it all started like that. I had an audition to go to theater class, I worked day and night, and things happened very quickly. After a year, I had an important part in a TV show, and a year later, I auditioned for “A Prophet,” and everything changed at that time.
Tell me about that TV show. Was that your first experience on a professional set?
I was so excited. I couldn't even sleep the night before. It’s always hard to sleep the night before your first day of shooting, you have the stress, but for this very first time, it was just excitement. I was dying to be on set and to be in front of the camera. I was about to do the same job as Brando did, De Niro! It’s crazy, the thing I would dream of is about to become true. When I went on set I realized it was not just a fantasy but was a real job and I had to be very serious instantly.
Jodie Foster + Tahar Rahim on ‘The Mauritanian’ + Building Real Characters Onscreen What advice would you give your younger self?
First of all, keep working all the time, but stay a kid as long as you can. The answers will come.
Do you feel like you’re any closer to those answers now?
Yeah, but each time you reach an answer, there’s another question.
“I realized when you are on a diet, your emotions are totally different. You are really very sensitive. It leads you to a place that you’ve never been before and it feels like reality.”
What questions are you mulling over at this point in your career?
What’s coming next. Am I going to be able to have another beautiful part as Mohamedou, as deep as this one? What’s going to happen next? What I would like is to explore unexpected fields, to be surprised all the time. I learned the trumpet for [Damien] Chazelle’s show [“The Eddy”] and I find it so hard. So I’d like to perform someone who’s really playing an instrument because each time you feel like you’re not going to be able to do it, it’s very exciting. I like to compare acting to sport. Each movie is a match. I like the thing of fighting for something and being able to go beyond your limits.
You’ve mentioned in interviews that “The Mauritanian” was tough to shoot and you pushed yourself. What has this role added to your acting skills?
I’ve learned that the more I act in English, for example, it’s not getting easier, but I feel more comfortable. It feels good to see that you can start to improvise a little bit. I had to be on a very drastic diet to lose 10 kilograms in 18 days. I realized when you are on a diet, your emotions are totally different. You are really very sensitive. It leads you to a place that you’ve never been before and it feels like reality. This time, something happened inside of me. Each time I have to play an emotional scene, I’ll fast for two days or three days because sometimes it feels good—it’s strange what I’m about to say—but as an actor, it feels good to suffer.
Why?
Usually, I take my emotions, the emotions I've been through, my life experience, and I reach a pain that feels real and do what I have to do. In this case, it was the other way around. I would surrender to my feelings and my emotions, and that’s a very interesting way to perform. I was losing myself. I was so exhausted that at some point when we did those torture scenes, there’s one scene where Mohamedu hallucinates and sees his mother in the cell. I put myself in realistic conditions so I could get a feel for what it is: Now I feel it, I can do it. But this time, I never took drugs so I’ve never hallucinated before. It never happened to me. I’m like, how can I do this? I got so tired and hungry, thirsty, that I was at the edge of living it for real. I remember this day, I said to Kevin [Macdonald, the film’s director] I can only do it once. And I did it once and then I collapsed. It was at the end of shooting, maybe two days before the end. You reach some points that you don’t know how to explain because it doesn’t have to deal with a method or a lesson you took from the past or an experience, it just happened.
How do you typically prepare for an audition?
I’m not good at auditions. It’s hard for me to believe in what I’m doing when I’m in front of a camera in an office with my own clothes, no set, no actors in front of me. It’s very hard. You can’t be at your top, it’s impossible. I find it very hard to do.
What is your worst audition horror story?
It’s embarrassing! I had an audition for a movie a long time ago and I did the scene, it was a comedy. [The casting director] said, do something to make me laugh, which is crazy to say to someone out of the blue. And then I just [copied] a scene I saw in a movie before. I did that and I fell. The casting director started to laugh, but not for a good reason. I was like, Oh man, I’ve got a lot to learn. I felt so ashamed. He was laughing because I was ridiculous, not because I was funny. It was horrible.
What's one performance every actor should see and why?
Al Pacino in “Scarecrow.” He did “The Godfather” before that and the range of this actor is infinite. To have the nerve to go picking this part right after being the Godfather is a big lesson to me—like, OK, he is a real cinema lover. And what he’s doing in this movie, the performance he gives is incredible. Each time he does something, he gives an emotion and it feels like it’s happening in the moment. You can see every emotion you can encounter in life: He’s a kid, he’s a father, he’s sick, he’s insane. What he gives is a masterclass. And he’s funny at the same time. He showed he’s able to do everything in one single movie.
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