BIG SCREEN BADDIES
Daniel E. Dercksen talks to Khalid Abdalla, who plays a terrorist that crashed United Airlines Flight 93, the fourth hijacked plane on the day of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil: September 11, 2001, now a captivating film by Paul Greengrass

Playing baddies on the big screen can be fun. The Terminator changed the way the world saw Arnold Schwarzenegger. Anthony Hopkins' delightfully wicked interpretation of cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lector instilled fear in moviegoers worldwide.  When it comes to playing a real-life terrorist that contributed to the deaths of thousands in United 93, it is a different story.

In British filmmaker Paul Greengrass' United 93, one of the first international films to focus on events that occurred on September 11, 2001, Glasgow-born Khalid Abdalla takes on a challenging role, one that most actors who starting their acting career on the big screen would avoid.

"The first challenge came in accepting the role," says Abdalla. "When I heard about the part I was reluctant even to go and audition. You only have to say the word 'Arab' or 'Muslim' for a whole host of negative associations to build immediately. Before they are associated with anything else, the words 'Arab' and 'Muslim' bring to mind the words 'terrorist', 'suicide bomber', 'hijacker', 'female oppression', and '9/11' itself. "

Born in Glasgow to Egyptian parents, he was raised in London, before studying at Cambridge University and then training in Paris at Ecole Phillippe Gaulier. Theatregoers in the UK will remember him in the Cambridge productions of The Duchess of Malfi, Bedbound, The Chairs, Othello, Glengarry Glen Ross and Equus, and The Suppliants (directed by Sam Leifer at BAC).

Abdalla feels strongly about the misrepresentation and stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims in films.

"The Hollywood terrorist and stereotyped Arab are more familiar to most than the real Arabs and Muslims of the world who cry, laugh, dance, write, people whose fear of violence is as much a part of their humanity as it is anyone else's. I would not act in something that I felt was harmful and misrepresentative, likely to promote racism and faith hatred."

It was his first meetings with Paul Greengrass that changed Abdalla's views on playing the role he initially feared. 

Regarded as a compassionate and socially aware director, Greengrass explored the impact of terrorism in Northern Ireland in Bloody Sunday and Omagh, racial violence in The Murder of Stephen Lawrence and one soldier's abandonment in Resurrected, before entering the commercial arena with the international blockbuster The Bourne Supremacy.

"Paul's first question to me and my fellow actor Omar Berdouni when we sat down in our recall summed up the challenge this film has had to face on all its levels: 'Do you think it is possible to do this film correctly?' My answer at the time was 'Yes. If you contextualise it.' "

Abdalla recalls how Greengrass made a very strong case for presenting the event itself, an "honest sense of what happened."

"Paul called it 'the DNA of our times' and that's something he had referred to in his original treatment, something he hoped would emerge through our re-enactment of the event. In a way I was surprised that someone actually wanted to do this film properly. But it was clear that I would be in the hands of someone I could trust."

"Something extraordinary about the films Paul makes is the way they engage with the event and the people directly affected by them. The involvement of the families of the victims has been a very important part of making this film. Our sense of responsibility to them and the event, which took their loved ones lives, has been very strong. Without a doubt it has guided the way in which this story should be told."

Abdalla no longer feared playing the role after his meeting with Greengrass and watching Bloody Sunday. He was determined to make the best of a challenging role.

"Playing a terrorist was my worst nightmare," says Abdalla. "The challenge became to do the film properly.  I would play a real terrorist who had died four and half years ago, about whom a lot was known, and my job was to present the story of what happened to him on that day with as much honesty as possible. We were engaged in portraying a historical event, which is to say it is a human event, and also one whose concerns were live. I would play a human being who did something monstrous, not a caricature, or a stereotype, and Ziad
Jarrah's story in particular has a lot to offer, I think."

There is humanity about all the characters United 93. When we first meet Abdalla's character in the film he says goodbye to someone he loves before boarding the plane.

"I think it's important that we are clear about what we mean when we talk about 'humanity' and terrorism," says Abdalla. "To humanise a terrorist, as I do in this film, is different to condoning what that terrorist does. But without allowing a terrorist his humanity it is impossible to ask the question 'why?' in any useful way. Caricatures and stereotypes allow that most important question to be answered too easily. If we start from the position that only a monster is capable of doing something monstrous, in asking the question 'why?' the answer comes back 'because he is a monster'. Monsters are easy to dismiss as mad. But more often than not it is human beings that are responsible for monstrous acts. When we have the courage to accept that, the questions that follow are darker, more urgent, and ultimately more fruitful."

United 93 is definitely one of the most important films of our time. How does Abdalla feel about this?

"That's for other people to judge, but personally I agree. It's a film about one of the most important events in recent history and the story it tells is one that is largely unknown. Everyone feels a sense of ownership about 9/11 because they know it is 'significant' and because we all shared a very similar experience watching those towers explode in fire and finally collapse. But in matter of fact most people know very little about what happened on the day itself."

Abdalla refers to the slogan that goes with 9/11: 'Never Forget', and feels that it is a slogan that should go with any event of similar significance.

"Detail and experience should prescribe the ethics of our relationship with this event and not sketchy ideas about who and why, ideas that are at best inaccurate and at worst built on received ideas, conspiracy theories, and prejudice," he says.

"This is an event which has been used as a basis on which to go to war. And yet so little is known by most people about what actually happened on the day. You cannot remember something, if in real terms you know nothing about it. And expect to make bad decisions if the foundations on which the decision is made is separate from the thing itself you are trying to deal with. I hope that this film is part of the process of bringing the work that has gone into this re-enactment to a wider audience to build a stronger and more open relationship with 9/11 itself. It is very important that that happens."

Abdalla hopes that audiences watching the film will leave feeling empowered to question the event.

"This film is an act of tribute and remembrance for those who died on that day. For me the greatest tribute this film can give them is play a part in helping us understand and deal with the event, moving forward." he says.

"This film opens up so many questions that need answering, and hopefully breaks taboos. The first thing that an audience will experience in this film, though, is a very moving expression of humanity. That humanity comes in the portrayal, it comes through the spirit of the film, and inevitably leads to some very important questions."

COPYRIGHT ©  2006 Daniel E. Dercksen
Published with permission in the Sunday Tribune on August 13, 2006.

READ THE COMPLETE SESSION WITH ABDALLA

I am sure you would agree that it is an incredibly challenging role? How challenging did you find it and how did you deal with the challenge?
The first challenge came in accepting the role. When I heard about the part I was reluctant even to go and audition. You only have to say the word 'Arab' or 'Muslim' for a whole host of negative associations to build immediately. Before they are associated with anything else, the words 'Arab' and 'Muslim' bring to mind the words 'terrorist', 'suicide bomber', 'hijacker', 'female oppression', and '9/11' itself. As if that weren't enough, the most frequent representation of an Arab or Muslim is one of fundamental misrepresentation and plain stereotyping. The Hollywood terrorist and stereotyped Arab are more familiar to most than the real Arabs and Muslims of the world who cry, laugh, dance, write, people whose fear of violence is as much a part of their humanity as it is anyone else's. I would not act in something that I felt was harmful and misrepresentative, likely to promote racism and faith hatred.
It was in meeting Paul, however, that I got a sense of a very different project to the one I had feared. Paul's first question to me and my fellow actor Omar Berdouni when we sat down in our recall summed up the challenge this film has had to face on all its levels: 'Do you think it is possible to do this film correctly?'. My answer at the time was 'Yes. If you contextualise it.' But Paul made a very strong case for presenting the event itself in uncompromising detail as a means of searching out something that might otherwise remain elusive, an honest sense of what happened on that day, and the chance to observe the day for what it might have to offer us now.  Paul called it 'the DNA of our times' and that's something he had referred to in his original treatment, something he hoped would emerge through our re-enactment of the event. In a way I was surprised that someone actually wanted to do this film properly. But it was clear that I would be in the hands of someone I could trust.
I bought 'Bloody Sunday' on my way home, watched it and all the DVD features that afternoon, and that was pretty much it. Playing a terrorist in a Hollywood film, previously my worst nightmare, was becoming something I would accept to do because from the point that I got the phone call offering me the part a few days later, the challenge became to do the film properly.  I would play a real terrorist who had died four and half years ago, about whom a lot was known, and my job was to present the story of
what happened to him on that day with as much honesty as possible. We were engaged in portraying a historical event, which is to say it is a human event, and also one whose concerns were live. I would play a human being who did something monstrous, not a caricature, or a stereotype, and Ziad Jarrah's story in particular has a lot to offer, I think.

This is most definitely one of the most important films of our time. How do you feel about this?
That's for other people to judge, but personally I agree. It's a film about one of the most important events in recent history and the story it tells is one that is largely unknown. Everyone feels a sense of ownership about 9/11 because they know it is 'significant' and because we all shared a very similar experience watching those towers explode in fire and finally collapse. But in matter of fact most people know very little about what happened on the day itself. The slogan that goes with 9/11 is 'Never Forget' and it's a slogan that should go with any event  of similar significance, but particularly when the event is still alive. Detail and experience should prescribe the ethics of our relationship with this event and not sketchy ideas about who and why, ideas that are at best inaccurate and at worst built on received ideas, conspiracy theories, and prejudice. This is an event which has been used as a basis on which to go to war. And yet so little is known by most people about what actually happened on the day. You cannot remember something, if in real terms you know nothing about it. And expect to make bad decisions if the foundations on which the decision is made is separate from the thing itself you are trying to deal with. I hope that this film is part of the process of bringing the work that has gone into this re-enactment to a wider audience to build a stronger and more open relationship with 9/11 itself. It is very important that that happens.

There is a humanity about all the characters in the film. Your character in particular has someone he loves and says goodbye to at the airport before boarding the plane? Do you think that we tend to forget about 'humanity' when it comes to terrorism?
Yes, and I also think it's important that we are clear about what we mean when we talk about 'humanity' and terrorism. To humanise a terrorist, as I do in this film, is different to condoning what that terrorist does. But without allowing a terrorist his humanity it is impossible to ask the question 'why?' in any useful way. Caricatures and stereotypes allow that most important question to be answered too easily. If we start from the position that only a monster is capable of doing something monstrous, in asking the question 'why?' the answer comes back 'because he is a monster'. Monsters are easy to dismiss as mad. But more often than not it is human beings that are responsible for monstrous acts. When we have the courage to accept that, the questions that follow are darker, more urgent, and ultimately more fruitful. The story told in my performance does not come from me, but from what we know about Jarrah himself. None of the hijackers was a stereotype but his story most clearly marks the difference. Even in relation to the nineteen hijackers of that day he was very much the odd one out. He had a secular upbringing, he went to a Christian school, he had a girlfriend in Germany. We know that in July 2001 he tried to pull out of the whole operation. Of all the hijackers he was the only one to keep in regular contact with his family and he called them on September 9th and said that he would see them on the 22nd for a wedding. Likewise, there is the story of what happened on the day, and how the story of United 93 differed from that of the other planes. Crucially, on all the other planes the hijackings took place within five minutes of the seatbelt sign going off. On this plane, however, there was a delay of twenty-six minutes that was catastrophic in its implications for the hijackers. They were flying away from their target for twenty-six minutes, and the cause, one has to presume was Ziad Jarrah. He was to be
the pilot of the plane and he was the leader of this particular group. There must have been some measure of hesitation, uncertainty, reluctance or conscience in him to make him hold back for twenty-six minutes after almost two years of preparation. Jarrah spent September 10th writing a goodbye letter to his girlfriend, he had already been through his moment of almost pulling out, and yet something kept him in his seat when the seatbelt sign went off. That is a human story and it is important that it is told.
Details like these have a lot to offer.

Your views on the event?
Those nineteen young men committed an atrocity on September 11th with immediate twofold effect. Most importantly, they killed nearly 3000 innocent people. One thing I feel this film does superbly is demonstrate clearly the value of innocent life. But they also committed a second atrocity in claiming to represent 1.2 billion Muslims across the world. The scale of both assaults is breathtaking. How dare they? Clearly, their actions were related to the political situation in the Middle East, and they believed that their actions would serve the interests of those they believed to be their people. But the awful twists of logic necessary to sustain their point of view unravels into the violence witnessed on that day and since. It is a horrible irony of their intentions that in simple numerical terms, since 9/11 the greatest number of deaths on account of suicide bombings internationally, has been Muslim. In Iraq, in Jordan, in Egypt, in Morocco, in Saudi Arabia, in Bali after the first bombing. Even on their own warped terms their actions have been unsuccessful. Bin Laden is well known as having believed that the USA was a paper tiger whose influence would collapse on the slightest damage. This has clearly been shown not to be the case, and awfully so.  Everywhere things have got worse, and those 19 boys represented little beyond themselves. They had no mandate. But we should never forget that the world was already in so bad a state on the morning of September 11th that somebody thought driving a plane into a building at full throttle was a good thing to do. The problems and injustices of the Middle East need to be dealt with properly and with dignity, especially in Palestine. 9/11 is not how you deal with them, and as far as I'm concerned, neither is war. Blood will have blood.

What do you think audiences will get from watching the film?
Above all, I hope an audience watching the film leaves feeling better empowered to ask the question 'Why?'. This film is an act of tribute and remembrance for those who died on that day. For me the greatest tribute this film can give them is play a part in helping us understand and deal with the event, moving forward. As I said before, so much of what is in this film, people do not know. This film opens up so many questions that need answering, and hopefully breaks taboos. The first thing that an audience will experience in this film, though, is a very moving expression of humanity. That humanity comes in the portrayal, it comes through the spirit of the film, and inevitably leads to some very important questions.

Paul Greengrass has a very specific routine of rehearsing, which seems rather close to theatre. Do you think this contributed to the authenticity of the film?
Paul's routine of rehearsal didn't seem particularly close to the theatre to me, at least not in a conventional way. Normally for a play, during rehearsals you work on your performance and together with the rest of the cast make decisions which, bar some fine-tuning, pretty much keep their shape till the end of the run. Likewise, you never (hopefully) perform in front of an audience until rehearsals are finished and you know what you're doing.  For United 93 we had two weeks of rehearsal, in which the focus was mainly blocking and getting a rough sense of what we would do when we performed.  Certainly that's what it was like for the actors playing hijackers. I can't really speak for the actors playing passengers because we were separated during those first two weeks, which of course played a significant part in Paul's process. But for us, rehearsals were when we would make practical decisions about the way in which the hijacking took place. It was then that we decided things like which hijacker was most likely to have the bomb, who held the air-hostess, what seemed the best way to hijack the plane. During rehearsals I was familiarised with the controls of a plane. We didn't really perform until we starting filming, and that was on Paul's request. I have a suspicion things were different for the actors playing passengers, bearing in mind there were forty of them and four of us. Oddly enough, the theatre bit really came in when we started filming. It almost felt like we were somewhere between rehearsing and performing a play, on film. The average take in a film is maximum four minutes long, if that. Our average take was 25 minutes long and our longest take was an hour and fifteen minutes long. Each take would be different and would develop from the takes that had come before it, much like the experience of rehearsing a play. The difference is that for us, as actors, each rehearsal was a performance, and each performance different in some way from the last. The cameras would rove between us finding the best material. Paul called it a process of harvesting. We acted even when the camera was not on us, because we never knew when it was coming, and because what we did might
effect the action that was on camera. You could say that each take was like performing a gruelling play, but each performance was different because we had to use it as an opportunity to discover more and change things. We were always looking for authenticity, and there is no doubt that the long takes and the fact that we were always searching helped us achieve that goal.

One of the great aspects of the film is that the event itself becomes the most important character. How do you feel about this?
I'm not really sure what you mean. I've never really thought of the event of 9/11 being a character in the film. I think the lack of overbearing characters and stars is a very important part of the film and the way the story of 9/11 is told, but I'm not sure that makes a character out of the event.
On the other hand, I think something extraordinary about the films Paul makes is the way they engage with the event and the people directly affected by them. The involvement of the  families of the victims has been a very important part of making this film. Our sense of responsibility to them and the event which took their loved ones lives has been very strong. Without a doubt it has guided the way in which this story should be told. It says a lot that this film has been made with the support of the families. So many of the people in the film, in the military and FAA play themselves. We have had the support of the FAA, the military, the 9/11 commission and the families, in making this film. Rather than say that the event is the most important character, I would say that the event itself has peopled United 93.

Tell me about the screenplay for United 93?
We had no script. The entire film was improvised. Paul produced a stunning treatment which described a vivid process of scenes, but there was no scripting of dialogue beyond what we were certain had actually been said on the day. Beyond that, our script, if you like, was the event itself. In terms of the plane, we had a timeline for what had happened on the day, we knew things from the cockpit voice and flight data recorders, we knew which seats everyone had been assigned, there were scripts or outlines of the telephone conversations that took place, and from the families each actor got to know a lot about the person they were playing. Each situation we had to confront as actors was a situation the real people will have faced on the day, and we played them out in full on the fuselage of a real plane. We had all these things to guide us, and together we tried to work out what took place in the gaps, all forty-four of us acting at the same time, with Paul at the helm.

As an actor, what do you look for in a script?
Something I can sink my teeth into, which I believe in, and I will enjoy doing.

You are an actor on stage and in film. Which do you prefer and why?
I don't have a preference. I love both. Acting for an audience is an immense privilege, and if actor and audience manage to share something, the experience is really very beautiful. That aspect of things doesn't change whether you're acting on stage or on film. The differences excite me. But I love theatre. And I love film.

COPYRIGHT ©  2006 Daniel E. Dercksen

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