Mamoudou Athie Chooses His Acting Roles Carefully
Photography by Christopher Sherman
Styling by Corey Ng
Mamoudou Athie feels lucky to have reached a point in his career where he can choose his roles carefully—or, rather, where his roles are picking him. His criteria? “A role has to be useful to society.” And his parts in this year’s The Front Runner and Sorry for Your Loss certainly have something to say about today’s world.
Catch Athie as the conflicted Washington Post reporter A.J. Parker in Jason Reitman and Matt Bai’s The Front Runner, a biographical drama chronicling the three-week rise and fall of Democratic senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart (played by Hugh Jackman) in 1988. Sorry for Your Loss, a new series on Facebook Watch, brings to the forefront the subject of mental health in a way that was eye-opening for Athie: “I was ashamed of myself because I never truly understood what my family and friends were struggling with.”
It’s hard to miss his Brobdingnagian frame or the deep baritone voice accompanying it, but it’s the acting chops that have made Mamoudou Athie one of TIFF’s most exciting young actors.
Casting: Ian Monroe
