Barkhad Abdi Captain Phillip: The British Film Academy Supporting Actor winner for his role in the blockbuster hit, Captain Phillips, continues to inspire many. His road to fame wasn’t at all easy, but despite it all, he seems to now have a career in Hollywood after working with “the Forrest Gump guy.”

Abdi shares in earlier interviews that he has never acted before and that he discovered the Captain Phillips from a cold casting call that was shown on TV in Minnesota. The state has a sizable Somali population.

In an interview with Here & Now’s Robin Young, Abdi shared his past in Somali, and his first acting role in Captain Philips as a Somali Pirate.

The first day is always the hardest. Abdi was lost in the set. His heart was beating wildly, and everything around him was “really nerve wracking.” But his nervousness slowly faded because of director Paul Greengrass. “He believed in me before I believed in myself,” Abdi recalled.

“I was really nervous. I was like, ‘am I really going to do this big part?’ And you know (what) he said, ‘just don’t think about it, you’re going to work at it on a daily basis, and each day you do the best at whatever you’re doing and don’t think about anything.’”

And with that, the film started rolling—along with Abdi’s rising acting career.

Captain Philips was not only a film for Abdi. It reminded him so much of his home country, both the good and the bad.

“I have good memories and bad memories of Somalia. You know, I remember the peaceful days, the beautiful Mogadishu. I remember when the war happened — overnight it just turned chaos. Dead people everywhere and gun shots don’t stop,” Abdi shared how the bittersweet memories fuelled his acting in the film.

In spite of the negative image that the Somali pirates have brought on his people, Abdi claimed, “I want people to know that the Somali people are very hard working people and they adapt to whatever environment they’re in. We have a lot of success stories, the Somali community here in the U.S. and even back in Somalia there’s a lot of good people working hard. And there’s the bad ones that bring the bad name — pirates and Al-Shabaab and all that other stuff.”

Amidst his successful debut, Barkhad Abdi remains humble and in gratitude to the people who helped him along the way. “This film, you know, truly changed my life for the better. And, you know, it's really grateful for everything that have been.”