THE ‘GOOD’ MUSLIM
‘Brave’ star combats stereotypes with portrayal of intelligence officer
“When it comes to Islam, TV is populated with vilified characters. I’ve read for hundreds of parts of them; I’ve played them.” — Hadi Tabbal
M ILITARY drama “The Brave,” which is having its fall finale Monday night on NBC, is hardly the only show of its kind — CBS’s “SEAL Team,” The CW’s “Valor,” and National Geographic’s “The
Long Road Home” were newly introduced to the genre this fall. But “The Brave” has one element that stands out as a television rarity: a heroic Muslim main character.
“It’s very refreshing,” says Hadi Tabbal, 34, who stars on the show as Amir Al-Raisani. “When it comes to Islam, TV is populated with vilified characters. I’ve read for hundreds of parts of them; I’ve played them. It’s an honoring feeling to play a character who is on the good side of the game for once, and who is nuanced. Amir dedicated his life to fight extremism because it misrepresents his faith.”
The show, which plays like a combination of “Law and Order” and “Homeland,” follows a Special Forces team as they enact rescue missions around the world, aided by an intelligence support staff in Washington, DC (led by Anne Heche’s character Patricia Campbell). Amir is an intelligence officer on the ground team, which is led by the Captain America-esque Adam Dalton (Mike Vogel). Tabbal says that he enjoys stepping into Amir’s shoes in part because it’s a large departure from his own life.
“I was never in my personal life militarily inclined and I’m completely not religious,” he says. “Whenever there’s anything that involves a certain ritual that has to do with prayers, that is fully authentic and fully researched.”
The show’s military aspect is also meticulously researched, thanks to a retired Navy SEAL on set. “We have a trainer who is also our technical consultant, Mikal Vega. He has been extremely instrumental in making sure that all that work is accurate,” says Tabbal.
In spite of their differences, however, Tabbal says that he shares enough life experience with Amir that much of his research was done before he even landed the role. “I am from the Middle East,” says the Beirut-born actor. “I’ve been around all sorts of faiths. I grew up in a civil war. So there’s a lot of micro- and macro-dynamics that I feel like I get through this. The cultural landscape comes from somewhere hard to even talk about on a conscious level.”
He adds that Amir has a leg up on him in the language department, though. While Tabbal is fluent in five languages, he says, “I think I’m going to be speaking eight or nine on the show.”
Although Tabbal is based in New York, he hasn’t had viewers approach him on the street to react to the show, since he’s still filming in New Mexico.
“But I’ve been getting a lot of messages on social media,” he says. “I’m getting a lot of ‘thank you so much for representing us in a good light’ [from Muslim viewers]. I have not gotten one negative comment yet about Amir and who he is, which makes me very happy. One of the things we need to see more of on television are nuanced characters — especially when it comes to groups of people that tend to be categorized under one general reductive brush stroke.”