Actor sues agent over 'race-specific' auditions

An Iranian actor is suing his agency after being told he should forget Shakespeare and go for roles as a terrorist or kebab shop owner.

Alan Marni, 33, claims he was only sent on auditions for 'race-specific' roles by his agency and clinched only three jobs in 21 months.

Mr Marni, who was born in Iran but who has lived in Britain since the age of four, said Otto Services Management sent him for a role as a 'shifty Arab' in a corporate video for the Spanish Tourist Board, a rapist in the ITV drama Cold Feet and a paedophile in Cops on BBC1.

Mr Marni, who lives in Islington, is taking the Sheffield-based agency to an industrial tribunal and has laid out his case in an 83-page statement under his real name, Fatollahy.

In the document he claims when he told agency co-ordinator John Langford he had always wanted to play Macbeth. 'He laughed at me and said ‘You’d be better suited for kebab shop owners and terrorists'.'

Mr Marni alleges the agency ruined his chance of a big break because he only found out the lead role for Roman Polanski’s The Pianist was available at the last minute.

By the time he had auditioned the part had been given to Adrien Brody, who went on to win an Oscar for the 2002 film.

The tribunal is due to start in Sheffield next week and Otto Services Management is understood to deny the claims.

Mr Marni is thought to be the first actor to sue his agency over discrimination, although Art Malik, who was born in Pakistan and played an arms dealer in the James Bond film The Living Daylights, has complained in the past
at only being offered parts as 'doctors, lawyers or people pushing
brooms around Heathrow'.

Mr Malik also played a Middle Eastern terrorist in the Arnold Schwarzenegger film True Lies.

Last year a report by the Arts Council of England and the Theatrical Management Association accused English theatre of institutional racism.