The Pretender
Interview with actor David Ackert
  By Sanaz Khalaj
October 8, 2003
The Iranian
  ...you may remember David Ackert in most part from his lead role as Ali, in a little movie called "Maryam", directed by Ramin Serry which received rave reviews in the media nationally is now available on DVD. Originally from the East Coast (DC Metro area), David is currently living in Los Angeles working on a few projects including Voices in Harmony, a non-profit organization which he co-founded in 1995. The organization works with inner city teenagers by setting them up with mentors to discover the power of theater and film and to uncover such issues as drug abuse, racism, stereotyping and violence via an artistic outlet in a safe environment.
  Below is an interview I did for your enjoyment. For more information on David and his pursuits check out davidackert.com.
   
 

Where were you born?
I was born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, to an American father and Iranian mother (Golnoush Khaleghi - Ruhollah Khaleghi was my grandfather).

How would you best describe yourself?
Determined, compassionate, honorable.

What did you study in school?
Acting.

People that affected you most in life?
Parents (their virtues and weaknesses have shaped my own); many of my high-school and college teachers; the Landmark Forum; lately, Rabbi Finley, and my wife.

How did you handle growing up Iranian in the US as a young child during such turbulent times as they were in the late 70's throughout the 80's? 
Growing up Iranian in the US has afforded me a more complicated view of issues like racism, racial backlash, etc. I used to be much more black and white about racial backlash and prejudice - after the hostage crisis I developed a persecution complex. But I have recently changed perspective on the issue and learned that I was as much to blame for the interactions where I felt victimized.
 
What made you decide you wanted to act?
I had just switched elementary schools in Virginia in '79. Being the new kid in my sixth-grade class, my teacher introduced me as the "new Iranian student who just came over from where the hostages were, and might be able to answer any questions..." You can imagine the other kids' reaction.

I quickly came to perceive school as a life-threatening place, so I started telling my mother I was too sick to leave my bed. I would concoct pains and vomiting spells so serious that my mom finally took me to doctors and specialists and eventually the hospital. It was an incredibly powerful experience, pretending something so convincingly that even the most seasoned doctors were fooled.

Later that I realized that my lies had caused my parents a financial burden, so I promised myself never to do something like that again, but I knew that when I grew up, I would be an actor - someone whose job it is to pretend circumstances convincingly.

Do you feel that acting is your "calling" in life?
I certainly can't imagine devoting myself to anything else with the same dedication. As a child I always loved to be the center of attention, loved to be playful and to pretend, so I know the muse is strong in me. As an adult actor, I find the traits that got me into the profession are the ones I have to be most careful to avoid. The moment I find myself showing off in a role, I lose my sense of the character and my concentration finds a selfish focus.

Briefly describe life in show biz.
I am never happier than when I am being paid well to do what I love. But show business has proved to be a very challenging ride. Work comes in spurts, then there are long dry spells of auditions and more auditions (which don't pay money but at least offer hope) and the financial challenges implied in such a lifestyle.

On top of that, it's easy to be seduced by the hyped-up lifestyle of the rich and famous Hollywood actor. So emotionally, there is a lot of frustration that comes with the business. At this point I have encountered enough miserable successful people in this industry to know that a TV show and a Bentley don't guarantee fulfillment. But in my weaker moments, I can become jealous of my colleagues when they're on a hot streak.

What is job hunting like in Hollywood for a Middle Eastern male during these times?
In some ways it's been easier since 9/11. There are more complicated roles. But there are more actors competing for those roles too.

Do you feel that you are bound by stereotypes made about Iranian actors/actresses by Iranians?
Generally, unless you're Houshang Tousi or Shohreh Aghdashloo, the Iranian community views the actor as a minstrel and pressures them to hurry up and get a real job. I have been fortunate in that my family and Iranian friends have not subscribed to such stereotypes.

But in LA there is a different stigma to navigate. There are so many people out here who are pursuing acting that it's almost a joke. Many of them have little training or work ethic, so they lend to the stereotype that actors are silly and clueless. If anything, it ads a sense of pride for those of us who are in it for the long haul, with a love for the craft and a willingness to devote our lives to it, because in our hearts we believe that even failure would be better than doing something else for a living.

What would be your advice for up coming students and fellow Iranians who are considering acting as a profession?
If it's a toss up between acting and something else, do something else. If they're sure that acting is the only thing that will make them happy, then get a mentor - someone who is more accomplished and trained than they are. Take them out to lunch for an interview every few months and get a feeling for how a professional lives and how he or she copes with it all. Then, follow their lead.

What's next on your plate? 
I have a recurring role on CBS's "JAG" this month. Ramin Serry's "Maryam" is out on DVD at Blockbuster. I'm co-writing a novel, which should hit book stores late next year. And of course, lots of auditions, so there could be more news in another week or so. Or not. That's part of what's scary (and magical) about being an actor.
   
  Actor David Ackert '92 makes his mark on-screen and with the kids in the neighborhood.
By Ellen Potter, Ithaca College Quarterly, 2002/No. 3
   
  Not long after David Ackert '92, star of the recently released independent film Maryam, moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an actor, he noted one of the most common pitfalls of the profession. All around him he saw other struggling actors who had been feverishly chasing fame for years; and in the end all they had to show for their efforts were --- maybe --- "a walk-on role on Friends and a string of unfulfilling day jobs," he says. Unwilling to put his life on hold until fame came knocking, Ackert, along with Melissa Fitzgerald (who plays the recurring role of press secretary aide Carol on NBC's The West Wing), decided to put their talents to immediate use.
  In 1995 they founded Voices in Harmony, a nonprofit mentoring organization for at-risk L.A. teens. Working with a group of 20 teens at a time, Voices in Harmony pairs each youth with a professional actor to create a one-act play around a topical theme, such as drugs, racism, or gang violence. At the end of six months they stage a production of the play. Jim Carrey, John Lithgow, Alfre Woodard, and Renée Zellweger have served as hosts. This past June Voices in Harmony's biggest production to date was hosted by cast members of The West Wing and attended by more than 2,000 people.
  "It's our intention to have an impact on these kids on every level," says Ackert, who maintains that the program, while certainly fun for the teens, takes a tough-love approach. It stresses personal responsibility, integrity, and respecting others' boundaries. For many teens, the Voices in Harmony experience marks a significant turning point in their lives. "Their teachers tell us that the teens [involved in the program] participate more in class and that their grades have improved, and their parents say that they are much more communicative."
  "When I came to this country nobody seemed to notice me," says Karla Nunfio, a former participant in Voices in Harmony. "All I got was indifference. I did not know English. It was hard for me to communicate with my teachers. Voices in Harmony helped me develop confidence in myself and taught me how to be more open-minded, meaning that I shouldn't be afraid to express my thoughts or feelings anymore."
  Ackert's own career, which includes television roles on JAG, Six Feet Under, The West Wing, Walker Texas Ranger, and Days of Our Lives, hit a turning point in 1998 when director Ramin Serry was trying to cast the role of Ali, an observant Muslim, in his film Maryam.
  "We held an exhausting search for Ali, auditioning dozens of actors in New York and Los Angeles," says Serry. "Nobody was even close to getting it right. It was looking pretty bleak. Then David walked in, read for the part, and blew us away."
  Set in New Jersey in 1979, Maryam is the fictional coming-of-age story of an Iranian American girl who suddenly becomes a social outcast after Americans are taken hostage in Iran. When her conservative Muslim cousin Ali comes to live with her family, she is forced to reexamine her own cultural identity.
  Although the film was completed four years ago, it struggled through the usual independent-film obstacles until Roger Ebert's two-thumbs-up review --- and the film's relevance to the events of September 11 --- made distributors sit up and take notice. Maryam opened in major cities this past spring and has since garnered exceptional reviews from the New York Times, New York magazine, the Village Voice, and the New York Daily News.
  Himself a second-generation Iranian American, Ackert found that preparing for the role required him to face his own demons, including some long-held beliefs about Islamic culture. "I had very stereotypical ideas about the Muslim religion," he says. "I thought, 'Oh yeah, that's [the religion] where they bundle up the women, and they're all fundamentalist Uzi-carrying monsters.' I was practically a redneck when it came to Islam, and I had to just consider that maybe I didn't know what the heck I was talking about in order to portray a character who was very much in love with the religion."
  Ackert began to reconnect with the Iranian community, attending mosque, taking Farsi classes, and reading the Qur'an. "I discovered so many beautiful things about the religion and saw how deeply misunderstood it is and how terribly misrepresented."
  Although Ackert was born in the United States, his Iranian mother and American father returned to Iran when he was five years old but fled back to the States during the 1978 - 79 Iranian revolution. The family settled in Washington, D.C., where, in the midst of the hostage crisis in Iran, nine-year-old David became the class pariah, much like the young film character Maryam. The other children picked on him so mercilessly, he says, that he began to feign illness in order to avoid going to school.
  "That is actually the beginning of how I became an actor," Ackert recalls. "I started lying." After a time during which he did some particularly compelling acting, he managed to get himself admitted into the hospital. "But by that time I'd actually started to believe I was sick, and the pain I experienced was real." The doctors were dumbfounded as to what was wrong with him, so they decided to take him in for exploratory surgery.
  The day before the scheduled surgery, Ackert's teacher came to visit him in the hospital and gave him a manila envelope. Inside were little scraps of construction paper --- get-well notes from everyone in his class. "They said stuff like 'David, I'm sorry I called you [an ethnic slur]. Love, Debbie.' And 'Dear David, I'm sorry I kicked you in the head.' All these gestures of atonement. I was very moved, and suddenly the pain I had been feeling disappeared. They took some blood tests and decided that whatever was wrong with me had gotten better, and they let me go a few days later. I went back to school, and for one day I was the most popular kid in class. But the following day there was some riot on a campus somewhere, and suddenly I was a 'camel jockey' again."
  These days, Ackert has come to view his ethnicity not only with pride but also as an advantage, since it provides him with a foot in the casting door more often than not. He played an Egyptian for his first TV series, Crossroads Café, which kept him employed for a year, and an Italian for his first lead in a feature film, Cool Crime, as well as for a guest spot on JAG. And Ackert's Persian accent in Maryam was, Serry says, impeccable. In fact, the director claims that audiences were consistently amazed at Q&A sessions when he told them that Ackert was born in Wisconsin and has an American accent.
  Ackert credits Ithaca College's theater arts professor Greg Bostwick with teaching him how to be such a linguistic chameleon. "Greg taught me the dialects with which I would later go and book most of my jobs," Ackert says. "He taught me how to be masterful with the phonetic alphabet and how to take apart dialects."
  What's next for Ackert? He recently finished shooting another independent film called Woman on Fire, a modern-day retelling of Medea, in which he once again plays a lead role. As for Voices in Harmony, having just wrapped up a very successful fund-raising event, the organization is entering a planning and development stage to assess how best to expand its programming.
  "One of the dangers of being an actor in Los Angeles is that your career and your focus become all about you," Ackert says. "After all, 'you' is the product you are selling. So you can choose to spend your whole life in that mind-set, chasing after two lines on Frasier, or you can get out there and do something that will really give your life meaning and substance."
  Luckily for more than 100 L.A. teens, Ackert has opted for the latter.
   
“Role Models”
By Jamie Painter Young, Backstagewest.com
May 29, 2002
  When actor David Ackert co-founded Voices in Harmony, a Los Angeles-based mentoring program that pairs at-risk teenagers with volunteer adult actors, he hoped to pass something positive on to young people through the medium he knew best--the theatre. Since its inception in 1995 the nonprofit organization has worked with more than 300 teens, who with their mentors spend six months collaborating on a one-act play focusing on such topical issues as drug abuse, racism, stereotyping, and violence. The mentorship culminates in a stage performance, for which students are bussed in from local schools. The public is also invited to attend.
  Over the years Ackert and his co-founder/co-artistic director Melissa Fitzgerald (who plays Carol on NBC's The West Wing) have enjoyed the support of such celebrities as Jim Carrey, who opened the film Listen, a one-hour drug-awareness documentary produced by Voices in Harmony. In addition Renee Zellweger, John Lithgow, Kristen Johnston, Alfre Woodard, Bonnie Hunt, and Chris Klein have hosted Voices in Harmony's stage productions, the next one to be held on June 1, at 2 and 8 p.m., at the Doolittle Theater in Hollywood.
  Titled “Violence: A Teenager's Perspective,” the upcoming event (produced in partnership with Fulfillment Fund, which provides grant money to nonprofit organizations in California) will present a total of 20 plays--each written and performed by a teen and his or her mentor--over the course of the two performance times. West Wing's Janel Moloney and John Spencer, X Men's Famke Janssen, and Noah Emmerich (The Truman Show) are scheduled to participate. A donation of $15 is suggested.
  Ackert noted that the Voices in Harmony mentors who work directly with the teens over a six-month period are not household names. These volunteers are working actors who care about giving something back to their community and sharing some life experience and wisdom with the teenagers they're paired with.
  “I think a lot of them find that it is one of the purest representations of why they got into acting in the first place,” said Ackert, “which is that they just wanted to get up onstage and shine and do something they could feel great about. And they get to see an urban teen grow as a result of the creative work they do together.”
  For actors interested in volunteering, Ackert suggested that they attend one of the June 1 performances, where there will be a sign-up booth for volunteers. Or check out the organization's website at www.voicesinharmony.org.
  Mentor Wanted
  A little more than a year ago, Ackert was inspired by the results his own organization was achieving. The actor had reached a point in his career at which he, too, wished he had a mentor--a more experienced actor who could help push him to excel.
  “I thought about how much these teenagers were benefiting by having a role model--someone in their lives they could look to for advice,” recalled Ackert, whose credits include appearances on The Practice, Family Law, General Hospital, JAG, and more recently HBO's Six Feet Under and a starring role in the independent film Maryam. Ackert trained back East, earning his undergraduate degree in acting at Carnegie-Mellon University and his B.F.A. from Ithaca College.
  He narrowed his quest for a mentor to five or six successful actors whose work he highly respected, whose backgrounds he related to, and who he thought might be open to sharing their advice and experience with a fellow actor. He called either the actors' agents or production companies (when appropriate) and explained his intentions. He then sent a brief letter introducing himself and asking if the actor would be interested in mentoring him. Of those Ackert contacted, two immediately responded--Tony Shalhoub and Alfred Molina. A year later, Ackert continues to seek their guidance.
  “These are people who are excellent actors, in my opinion--people I really look up to and who seemed kind of accessible,” said Ackert. “They had theatre backgrounds. I knew they were living in town. I thought they might actually respond to a personal letter because they probably don't get volumes of fan mail every day. And frankly I could just relate to them better than I could anyone else. I play different kinds of ethnic roles [Ackert is Iranian-American], and those two have really managed to capitalize on their looks and their talent, but also to move across into less predictable roles for themselves.”
  Ackert met first with Shalhoub, who is best known for his roles on NBC's Wings and the films Big Night, Galaxy Quest, and The Man Who Wasn't There. “Tony was kind enough to meet me for lunch, and he was really very supportive,” recalled Ackert. “His schedule didn't really allow for any kind of structured mentoring to take place, but he said, 'Call me whenever you want to chat.' And I do. The thing that I've been getting most out of our conversations is that he lets me know that I'm just one step away from him. He helps me demystify this notion of, Here's somebody who's working all the time and then there's me who's working sporadically. He lets me know that I'm on the right track and I just have to keep at it.”
  Tough Love
  Molina has taken a more hands-on approach to mentoring Ackert. Molina, who has taught acting over the years and currently teaches a class in L.A., told Back Stage West that he has long been interested in the idea of serving as someone's mentor. He also knows, first-hand, how helpful a mentor can be.
  “I was very fortunate when I was at drama school in England,” shared Molina, whose stage work includes the Royal National Theatre's productions of Tennessee Williams' Night of the Iguana and David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow and his Tony-nominated performance in Art. On-screen he's acted in Chocolat, Boogie Nights, and Prick Up Your Ears, among many others. “I had a mentor--a wonderful actor [Geoffrey Richmond], who sadly is dead now. He was a very smart, very practical, very hands-on kind of person. He was a well-known actor, but he'd been a jobbing actor all his life and had done a lot of theatre. He was experienced in terms of just the nuts and bolts of the work--the everyday realities of it.
  “Another mentor, early on when I was at the equivalent of high school, was a man named Martin Corbett, who was also very instrumental in focusing and galvanizing me into doing what I knew I wanted to do, but I didn't know how to go about it. So in a way I'm partly doing this for them as well,” Molina explained. “It's important to pass on whatever experience you've gained.”
  For the past year, Ackert and Molina have been meeting once a month to discuss whatever is on Ackert's mind concerning his career. Molina has also sat in on Ackert's acting class to observe him and went to see Ackert's film, Maryam, when it played in Los Angeles earlier this year. As the protege said of his mentor, Molina has been both encouraging and inspiring.
  “I don't always want to hear what Alfred wants to tell me,” confessed Ackert, recalling their most recent talk. “He said to me, 'You know, you aren't putting enough of your energy into getting onstage and doing really good theatre. You're talking about it too much. Shut up and get out there and get into a good play.' And I didn't want to hear that. I wanted him to tell me, 'Oh, good for you! You were on Six Feet Under last week. Wow! That's impressive,' like all my other friends do. But he wasn't about to BS me on anything.
  ”The next day I got on the phone with a friend of mine who's in a theatre company and asked him when their auditions were. It motivates me. There's just something really valuable about knowing that he cares. I can turn to him and he'll always sober me up and have me focus on the right things. I take [his advice] to heart.”
  Ackert acknowledged that when he first approached Molina to be his mentor, he thought it might open up some doors for him in Hollywood: “I was thinking that he was going to just swoop in and fix everything and invite me to the right parties and suddenly I'd be schmoozing with the right people. And what I got out of it was not at all what I had expected. It was actually something a lot more valuable than some tip or some break. He gave me a new way of looking at the work that I do--that is directly in front of me. At the end of the day, it's not about, Are you famous? It's about, Did you do what you needed to do as an actor? Were you fulfilled?”
  These days Ackert finds satisfaction not just in his charitable contributions but also in his pursuit of being a good actor.
   
  Guilt by Association
Life changed for Americans of Iranian descent during the 1979 hostage crisis. A filmmaker and his actors channel their feelings into 'Maryam.'
  March 7, 2002
By LORENZA MUNOZ, LA Times Staff Writer
  Ramin Serry was only 10 years old when he became a target. It was Nov. 4, 1979, and 52 Americans were taken hostage in Iran. Although Serry, born in Chicago, had always thought of himself as an all-American kid, on that cool day in November he first realized he was not like everyone else. Serry's parents were Iranian. And for the next 444 days of the hostage crisis, Serry's life became a living torment. Out of shame and anger, he refused to talk about his experiences and never showed any interest in his cultural roots. It took 23 years for him to be able to tell his story. Now a 33-year-old director, Serry decided to make a feature film about his experience. The independently distributed "Maryam" opens Friday in Los Angeles.
  The film, which opened in New York in late February, is about a young Iranian American girl and her family who become pariahs in their middle-class suburb when the hostage crisis erupts. The experience forces her to get in touch with her cultural roots and try to forge an identity in a hostile world. The film, which stars two relatively unknown actors--Mariam Perris, who is Maryam, and David Ackert, who plays Maryam's cousin Ali--was also a voyage of self-discovery for the two stars and Serry.
  "The most important event in my life was what happened during the hostage crisis," said Serry, who lives in New York City. "No matter where an Iranian was at that time, it had a profound effect on them."
  The film's subject is particularly relevant in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and the backlash some Arab Americans felt in the wake of the attack. Some assaults on people of Middle Eastern and Asian descent are being investigated as hate crimes. Images in the film from 1979 of Americans waving the flag and chanting "USA" are reminiscent of scenes immediately after the terrorist attack in September. The timing was coincidental, since the film was completed in 1998.
  Like many other independent filmmakers, Serry and his girlfriend (also the film's producer), Shauna Lyon, raised the $1 million for the film using their credit cards and relying on donations from family and friends. Serry says both Ali and Maryam are reflections of himself.
  The film was a cathartic experience for Serry, said Lyon, who has been his girlfriend for 12 years. "It has helped him come to terms not only with his own cultural identity but with a lot of different types of people who make up the Iranian American community."
  Serry remembers when his father would shut himself in a bedroom and listen to the BBC world report on the radio--the first harbinger of difficult times to come.
   "I remember lying awake and hearing over the radio the toll of Big Ben and the British announcer crackling over the airwaves," recalled Serry. "I don't remember being able to make sense of it at the time. But emotionally I felt very unsettled. It was only as a teenager or in college that I was able to process and understand it."
  Serry put those emotions into a story after graduating from Columbia University's film school in 1995. The film received positive feedback at festivals, but "we were told by the distributors that they didn't have faith the movie could be marketed," said Serry. "We don't have big stars and it deals with politics."
  Like most determined first-time filmmakers, Serry and Lyon persisted. Their big break came when critics Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper gave it a thumbs-up review recently on their syndicated TV show, said Serry. At that point, Serry and Lyon were able to convince exhibitors to give them a chance.
  For Greg Laemmle, vice president of L.A.'s Laemmle Theatres, booking the movie was a no-brainer. There are about 700,000 people of Iranian descent in Los Angeles County, according to the Iranian Muslim Assn. of North America, a nonprofit organization based in Culver City. In an average year, the Laemmle Music Hall in Beverly Hills shows a dozen Iranian films, Laemmle said, adding that his company has been catering to the Iranian population for at least 15 years. "We are aware of the fact that there is a large Iranian population in Los Angeles and, quality of this film aside--and it is very good--we thought it would appeal to that audience," said Laemmle.
  Many of the Iranian filmgoers are now second generation, the children of the people who lived through the revolution. Although many were born in this country, they still feel an affinity for their parents' native land, said Iraj Ghasemi, head of N.E.J. International Pictures, an Iranian film distributor in the U.S. "About 10 years ago, the average age of our audience was around 40, now I see many 20-, 30-somethings," he said. "The new movies that are coming out of Iran are paying more attention to the new generations and the current problems in Iran."
  The election of the more moderate Mohammad Khatami in 1996 also benefited filmmakers, said Ghasemi. With increasing freedom there has been a greater output of internationally acclaimed films that deal with issues ranging from the oppression of women to the persecution of Kurds on the Iran-Iraq border to the destitution of Afghan refugees living in Iran. However, there are still incidents of filmmakers being jailed for their work and the government banning their films, said Ghasemi.
   "Maryam" also deals with the internal conflict within the Iranian community between the more secular Iranians who fled the ayatollah and the more conservative or traditional Muslims who abhorred the shah and remain staunch supporters of a conservative Islamic state.
  In the film, Maryam's orphaned cousin from Iran, Ali, comes to the U.S. to study medicine. But Ali is a supporter of the ayatollah and a conservative Muslim who blames the death of his father on the shah's notorious secret police. His more traditional beliefs--particularly on the role of women and assimilating into American culture--create conflict in Maryam's family. Ackert says his character, Ali, gives a human face to people the media have labeled "Muslim extremists."
  Strangely enough, Ackert had negative feelings about Islam before he was cast for the part. Ackert's father is American and his mother Iranian. Both were Christians living in Iran when the revolution happened. They fled Iran and settled in the suburbs outside Washington, D.C. Ackert was born in the United States and, like Serry, had only a vague connection to his mother's homeland. But in his research for the role, he came to appreciate not only Iranian culture but also Islam.
   "I had a lot of very negative opinions about what I thought was Islam, and in fact I had a lot of shame about being Iranian," said the 32-year-old actor. "I had to really embrace those things so I wouldn't feel I was faking it for this role. I went to mosques, read the Koran and immersed myself in the culture.... Saying that Islam is all about terrorism is like writing off all of Western religion because of the crusades."
   Ackert also had some scarring experiences as a result of the hostage crisis. Ackert had just switched schools when the hostages were taken. Being the new kid in his sixth-grade class, his teacher introduced him as the "new Iranian student who could explain what was going on."
   "I was marked for death from that point on," he recalled. "Dodge ball became 'Peg David.'" Like Serry, Ackert was called every expletive and insult and was beat up nearly every day. "I became really terrified of school," he said.
  So he started playing hooky and telling his mom he was ill. He would concoct pains and vomiting spells so serious that his mother finally took him to the hospital. It was there, when he received get-well cards from his classmates that he learned to forgive.
  "They said things like, 'Dear David, I'm sorry for punching you in the face after slamming your finger in the locker' or 'Dear David, I'm sorry for beating you up during dodge ball,' and in my 11-year-old mind I fell in love with my classmates.... I [also] realized I could not run away from what I was," he said.
   Ultimately, the story is "about trying to find the humanity in each other," said Parris, who was born in Great Britain but whose parents are Azerbaijani. "It's about establishing your individuality and identity and having it be accepted."
   
   
 
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