Q&A: Fayssal Bazzi, actor, 37

Actor Fayssal Bazzi on being asked to play ‘third terrorist from left’ and his new role in a detention centre drama.

Fayssal Bazzi. Picture: Ben King

Your dad is Lebanese and your mum’s from Syria. After working steadily in Australia for more than a decade, do you still find yourself being typecast? I refused a few terrorist roles just last year, actually. I never want to play someone who’s set-dressing or someone who brings down the community, as if you’re saying, “These are the only kind of Arabs in the world”. If a role came along that was delving into the humanity of that person, that’s more interesting to me than just going, “Do you want to be third terrorist from the left?”

Your family emigrated from Beirut when you were three and you started school speaking Arabic and French. Did you have a tough time settling in? Yes, but I had a Year 2 teacher who encouraged me to mime to indicate what I wanted. She said I was so good at it that I should become an actor and I didn’t think of doing anything else after that. Teachers should be paid the same as doctors; they really shape people’s lives.

In the new detention centre drama series Stateless, you play an Afghan teacher fleeing the Taliban. What’s he like? He’s bright and optimistic and the thing I love about him – and what I hope the viewers will love – is he is just a human. He’s a man trying to find a safe place for his family, where his children can grow up and not have to worry about being persecuted.

The show’s producer and star Cate Blanchett says drama needs to be “challenging and impolite”. Is it difficult to get drama like that made? Cate was shopping this idea around for the best part of five years. People just don’t want to touch anything that has to do with refugees and putting a human face on things. We are so lost in buzz words and statistics that sometimes it’s hard to remember we’re talking about human beings. The story of our immigration policies is a hard one to tell so we come at it from many different points of view. I hope it starts up some conversations.

You’re on stage at the moment in Sydney Theatre Company’s The Deep Blue Sea. Is casting for theatre more colourblind than film and TV? The reason I stay doing theatre in Australia is people don’t even ask about cultural background anymore. The thing that screen can learn from it is that the audience doesn’t think about it. Once the house lights go off, they’re just watching performers play characters.

Is there hope for the screen industry? America is starting to get there now and it is changing here. Last year I filmed a show called The Commons, a climate-change drama, and my culture isn’t even touched on. I’m just a character, which is great.

Your beard in Stateless is almost a separate character… Yeah, I’ve got to get him his own contract! I’m blessed to be able to grow facial hair really quickly. I have a cameo in a show called Mr Inbetween that was filmed while I was doing Stateless. I said to [director] Nash Edgerton, “Hey man, I can’t shave. This guy is going to have to have a big full beard.”

How disappointed were you that your part in the Hollywood film Peter Rabbit had been cut? Not at all. It was just a little scene and when that got cut, I got a call from them saying, “Hey, do you want to be the voice of Mr Tod the fox?” So I got an even better role and I could rock up to the sound booth in trackies.

Stateless premieres on the ABC on March 1.