When “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart decided to adapt Maziar Bahari’s memoir into the film Rosewater, the most important thing was to find an actor who could play the Iranian-Canadian journalist who was imprisoned and interrogated for 118 days in his home country after being accused of being an American spy.
It probably didn’t take too long for Stewart to arrive at Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal, who has played a wide variety of roles since his earlier films Amores Perros and Y Tu Mama Tambien and could bring just the right level of drama and humor to the role of Bahari, who desperately looked for humor within the futility of his situation. (Coincidentally, it was an appearance on “The Daily Show” which made the Iran government suspicious of Bahari.)
A few years back, Bernal starred in the Chilean drama No, which was about a controversial election in that country, but that looked at the elections from a campaigning standpoint, while Rosewater looks at the consequences of those trying to protest against the 2009 Iran elections which reportedly had been fixed by Ahmadinejad.
ComingSoon.net sat down with Bernal just yesterday to talk about portraying Bahari in Stewart’s debut and how that fit into his filmography, as well as working with the first-time director.
Rosewater opens across the country today. You can watch our interview with Stewart and Bahari here.
