Despite acting in his first movie, Barkhad Abdi proved to be a great actor in the role he played in the very successful smash hit Captain Phillips. He even earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, but the Somali American is reported to be struggling to survive in Hollywood where he moved to after the movie.
According to Business Insider, Abdi was paid $65,000 and some occasional per diem despite the movie netting $218 million in earnings and having a production budget of $55 million.
A New Yorker story reveals that Abdi get to loan clothes from friends and fellow actors.
“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. 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 hotel near LAX to be closer to his friend, a Somali cabdriver from Minneapolis, who shuttles him around for free.”
The actor has not landed any other role.
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