Mena Massoud. Image: Philip Cheung/The New York Times
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Mena Massoud swooped onto the big screen as the lead in the live action 2019 adaptation of Aladdin that broke box office records.
“That’s something I’ll be proud of forever,” he tells the Big Issue. “An all-ethnic cast to cross a billion dollars… I don’t think it had been done before and I don’t think it’s been done since.”
The film shook up the industry, but it didn’t initially grant all of Massoud’s wishes. A few months later he said: “I’m kind of tired of staying quiet about it… I want people to know that it’s not always dandelions and roses when you’re doing something like Aladdin. ‘He must have made millions. He must be getting all these offers.’ It’s none of those things. I haven’t had a single audition since Aladdin came out.”
Five years on, he says the industry has shifted. “Streaming has really changed the industry in a big way. There’s more content now than ever. Therefore, there’s more actors now than ever. Therefore, there’s more competition. But also more opportunity.”
But that opportunity, as far as Mena Massoud is concerned, comes from creating it yourself.
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“I feel like as an artist, especially an artist of colour, our opportunities aren’t plentiful,” Massoud says. “There are not a lot of roles in Hollywood where they’re looking for someone that looks like me. I mean, think about my biggest role to date, Aladdin, it was very specific. I didn’t get cast in a generic role there. And those opportunities don’t come up often in Hollywood for people that look like me so I knew I needed to start a production company to create opportunities for myself, work on passion projects that nobody else believed in.”
Mena Massoud co-founded Press Play Productions, which has been instrumental in him launching a podcast, Growth Untold, and his Evolving Vegan venture, which began as a book then became an acclaimed travelogue series.
“I wrote the book, but the whole point of the book was to then go out and sell the show. I tried to sell that show for about three, four years. I went in to all the studios in Hollywood and got the same response from everybody. ‘Oh, it’s vegan. It’s niche.’ So you hear a lot of ‘no’s but I’m proud of the show. Not everybody can understand your vision but you’ve got to believe in yourself and go after it.”
Massoud could be channelling Patrick, the character he voices in new heartwarming family animation Butterfly Tale. Patrick has a deformed wing preventing him from taking part in the 3,000-mile monarch butterfly migration, but he isn’t going to let that stop him.
“The main lesson is that life is gonna throw trials and tribulations at you, but sometimes it’s for the best – even though we don’t see it that way right away,” Massoud says. “Patrick realises he might not have the best flying skills, but he’s braver than most and he’s willing to take bigger risks than most, and that pays off in the end.”
Patrick’s journey was one Massoud can relate to. His family undertook a migration of their own, moving from Egypt to Canada when he was a young child.
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“I was three and a half years old. I might not remember crossing the border and naturalising but growing up I certainly knew that I was different. I remember growing up feeling that way throughout my time at school. I knew that I came from a different place. I might not look like everybody else. At first I looked at that like it was a crutch, like it was something negative. But as I grew up, I found that that’s actually what made me unique.
“It’s a hard thing that any immigrants do. But as you go on in life, you realise that it instils certain values in you – hard work and dedication and resilience that other people might not have.”
Patrick doesn’t let his under-developed wing stop him flying off across America. Photo: Signature Entertainment
It’s these values that motivated Mena Massoud to try acting, and crucially persevere even if everything didn’t go to plan.
“I graduated theatre school and worked at a restaurant, like many actors do for three years, trying to save up money to get to LA. That gave me confidence. I was like, I’m doing the work, I’m putting in the effort here that very few other people are willing to put in, maybe I’ve got a shot at doing this. Confidence is betting on yourself but it takes time to nourish and nurture.”
Setting up his own production company has given Mena Massoud insight into the fickle and unpredictable side of showbusiness. Last year he was in the north of England preparing for a new movie called Giant. Going from Prince Ali in Aladdin to Prince Naseem, Massoud was set to star in a biopic of boxer Naseem Hamed opposite Paddy Considine as his trainer Brendan Ingle. But a year ago, work was suddenly halted.
“I had started accent work, my northern dialect. I had started choreography for all the different fights the great Prince Hamed was a part of, and then it kind of all just stopped. We weren’t given many reasons. I think it was financial. Maybe funding fell through.
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“That’s the other thing about being an actor sometimes. You’re the last person to be told anything. People ask me about the sequel to Aladdin. That unfortunately goes beyond my paygrade, I just have no idea.
“So is the industry changing? I think so. But as an artist of colour, I think you still have to create opportunities for yourself. If you’re waiting around for the phone to ring, it’s a tough life to live. I’ve lived it and it’s tough.”
Butterfly Tale is in cinemas now.
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