From LA Times
Before Sandra Saad was a superhero in a major Marvel property, the actress found herself in an unfortunate, potentially career-killing position for a young performer. She had to turn down acting opportunities.
It’s crucial, says Saad, a first-generation Egyptian American, to take on characters that don’t fall into Middle Eastern stereotypes. But the pitfalls of certain roles aren’t always immediately apparent. While she speaks Arabic, her reading skills of the language are hit-and-miss, which means she could miss the nuances of certain lines of dialogue. This is why she runs potential roles by an authority higher than any agent, casting director or Hollywood advisor: her mother.
“Sometimes I get these scripts that are just dangerous to play,” says Saad, who has a starring role in Square Enix’s take on the game “Marvel’s Avengers,” out this week.
“They would make me say things that are just horrible,” Saad continues. “Sometimes I need to ask my mom what it says, and one day she started tearing up. She said, ‘Please don’t do this to yourself. Please don’t do this to our people.’ A lot of these roles are political. ‘OK, thank you. I’m not doing it.’”
There are, of course, modern-life realities, such as paying bills. But Saad, who was spending the bulk of her time behind the scenes as a makeup artist, saw some compromises as too great.
“I have a lot of Arab friends, and a lot of stuff they go out for is harmful — wife of terrorist,” she says. “I have been told multiple times by a lot of agents that that’s all I’m going to go out for because that’s all I am. I don’t want to tell that story. I don’t want to do that to my people. So I told myself a while back that I would rather not ruin my career that way, and make myself look bad and make my people look bad, to just book a couple hundred dollar job. It’s not worth it to have that trash on my résumé.”
The strong-willed patience paid off.
Saad in her first large role is the voice and personality behind the superhero known as Ms. Marvel in “Marvel’s Avengers,” the alter-ego of Kamala Khan, a Muslim Pakistani American teenager from Jersey City. Khan hasn’t yet made her debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — Disney and Marvel announced last year that a “Ms. Marvel” series would be coming eventually on Disney+. Thus, Saad’s performance and Square Enix’s interpretation will be the first major cultural appearance by the character outside of the comics.
