Barkhad Abdi, the Oscar-nominated first-time actor who starred in "Captain Phillips," is reportedly broke, according to ABC News.
After countless award nominations, the 28-year-old actor is reportedly struggling to stay afloat, based on information from a New Yorker story. Abdi was paid just $65,000 for his work on the Tom Hanks film, a salary he received two years ago.
After production ended, Abdi sold mobile phones at a Minneapolis mall with his brother. However, after "Captain Phillips" was released in October of last year, Abdi quit his job and had been on the awards circuit since.
The New Yorker's Dana Goodyear reported this week, that the actor was struggling "to stay afloat."
"When Abdi is in Los Angeles to promote the film, he subsists on a per diem, good at the Beverly Hilton, where the studio likes to put him up," Goodyear wrote. "The town car is available only for official publicity events. His clothes are loaners. Recently, Abdi requested that he be allowed to stay at a commuter's hotel near LAX, to be closer to his friend, a Somali cab driver from Minneapolis, who shuttles him around for free."
The Somali-American actor is well known for his character, Muse, the leader of the group of Somali pirates who take on Tom Hanks in Paul Greengrass' film. He also known for uttering the infamous line "I'm the captain now."
He was born in Somalia but moved to Minneapolis when he was 14. The former limo driver and DJ, reportedly had no acting experience when he attended an open casting call seeking Somali actors, ABC News reported.
"I was just at my friend's house. So it just comes on TV -- Tom Hanks, local TV, local Somalis -- cold casting was going on," he told HuffPost Entertainment last year. "So I go and there's about 700 people or more there. I had over 100 people ahead of me. And I write my name and when it came to me they gave me a paper saying, 'OK, you study this part. You study the lines and you come back tomorrow.' [...] That first day we didn't do that good so we went home and we practiced. And truly, I felt that we got the part. Then we come back and we do it and then we get called back again. And we had one or about two weeks of silence, and we didn't know whether we got the job or not. And after that one or two weeks, we got called and we met [director] Paul Greengrass, who told us we had the part."
The Hollywood Reporter noted that Abdi is currently in talks to star as South African marathon runner Willie Mtolo in "The Place That Hits The Sun."
"I never pictured myself as a famous person. I like the essence of filmmaking and storytelling. The fame part, I'm just trying to take it easy," Abdi said during an interview. "I'm not big into buying stuff, I'm a simple guy. I bought a car, not that big name of a car, a Saab. I'm not into big name stuff."
