Barkhad Abdi Overview

Barkhad Abdi was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. After a civil war broke out, his family moved to Yemen. When Barkhad was 14, the family moved again, this time to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Barkhad was working as a limousine driver when he saw a story on TV announcing that film producers were looking for local Somalis to play roles in a movie starring Tom Hanks. He went, with hundreds of others, to audition. After several callbacks, he was called in and met director Paul Greengrass, who told him he had... See All