‘It Makes Me Sick’: Actress in Muhammed Movie Says She Was Deceived, Had No Idea It Was About Islam

[goodhue]

Source: Gawker

‘It Makes Me Sick’: Actress in Muhammed Movie Says She Was Deceived, Had No Idea It Was About Islam

Adrian Chen

The story of the Muhammed movie which sparked deadly protests in Libya gets weirder. The actors who appeared in it had no idea they were starring in anti-Islam propaganda which depicts Muhammed as a child molester and thug. They were deceived by the film's director, believing they were appearing in a film about the life of a generic Egyptian 2,000 years ago.

Cindy Lee Garcia, an actress from Bakersfield, Calif., has a small role in the Muhammed movie as a woman whose young daughter is given to Muhammed to marry. But in a phone interview this afternoon, Garcia told us she had no idea she was participating in an offensive spoof on the life of Muhammed when she answered a casting call through an agency last summer and got the part.
The script she was given was titled simply Desert Warriors.

"It was going to be a film based on how things were 2,000 years ago," Garcia said. "It wasn't based on anything to do with religion, it was just on how things were run in Egypt. There wasn't anything about Muhammed or Muslims or anything."

* * *

According to Garica, her three days on set last July were unremarkable. The film's mysterious pseudonymous writer and director, "Sam Bacile," has claimed to be an Israeli real estate mogul. But Garcia said Bacile told her he was Egyptian on set. Bacile had white hair and spoke Arabic to a number of "dark-skinned" men who hung around the set, she said. (A Bacile associate also told The Atlantic he wasn't Israeli or Jewish.)

* * *

Read more: http://gawker.com/5942748

[Duer 157099]

1. This could easily be from The Onion

I mean, I know it isn't but I could see them writing something like this.

Except they'd turn it around: "I didn't know it was about religion! It was just a movie about things that happened 2000 years ago, some guy who was a carpenter and stuff, had a bunch of friends who fished and stuff..."

Any actor that participated in this film probably really needed the work and didn't care what it was about.

[Firebrand Gary]

2. K&R

[catbyte]

3. Even more bizarre & misleading, Egyptians weren't even Muslims

that long ago, right?

[Robeysays]

28. sigh, 2 things.

This isn't directed at you, but since you asked, an no one has answered. ill just leave it here.

1. why has no body given an answer?
2. Islam only started, IIRC in 620ish. and really didn't start expanding imperially until the early 700s.


LINK : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam

[aquart]

4. California?

I wonder how Rove's accountant listed it.

[StrictlyRockers]

5. "...an actress from BAKERSFIELD"???

Bakersfield??? The armpit of California? That's where the actress is from? What is this, some kind of a joke?

[goodhue]

9. Here is her resume, which does list "Desert Warriors" . . .

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4555815/resume

[MrMickeysMom]

29. Have you seen the scenes posted on DU earlier?

I was a joke. Must have spent a few hundred dollars on the special effects! Green screens so that it was supposed to look like the desert with tents and super-imposed people walking around on the sand. This scene looks like something from out of the Banana Splits Saturday morning cartoons.

No, I'm betting they didn't send any scripts to Hollywood agent. These people needed to pay some bills for this kind of work.

[randome]

6. Again, it sounds like James O'Keefe.

[K8-EEE]

11. Wow you're totally right....nt

[SoapBox]

7. Time to have her talk to a sketch artist.

...let's get an image of the idiot.

Is she sure that he wasn't from Florida, big huge white mustache and runs a small, crazy "church"?

[Flatpicker]

8. I can see it

If the actress had only played a bit part, it could have been a 1 day shoot and she only got her page.

Basically, it was a job. It could have been a history channel reenactment for all she knew.

[goodhue]

10. Yes. She says it was 3-day shoot . . .

According to Garica, her three days on set last July were unremarkable. The film's mysterious pseudonymous writer and director, "Sam Bacile," has claimed to be an Israeli real estate mogul. But Garcia said Bacile told her he was Egyptian on set. Bacile had white hair and spoke Arabic to a number of "dark-skinned" men who hung around the set, she said. (A Bacile associate also told The Atlantic he wasn't Israeli or Jewish.)

"He was just really mellow. He was just sitting there and he wanted certain points to be made."

Once, Garcia said, Bacile wanted a girl that "Master George" (aka Muhammed) was to sleep with to look seven years old, instead of 10, to heighten the outrage. But his Assistant Directors protested, saying that was too young.

After the protests erupted and Bacile appeared in the media, Garcia called him up today to express her outrage at his deception.

http://gawker.com/5942748

[rgbecker]

13. Other DU post says Sam Bacile doesn't exist, isn't real.....

Garcia calls him up, has a talk with him, threatens to sue.

What's wrong with this story?

From Gawker:"

After the protests erupted and Bacile appeared in the media, Garcia called him up today to express her outrage at his deception.

"I called Sam and said, 'Why did you do this?' and he said, 'I'm tired of radical Islamists killing each other. Let other actors know it's not their fault.'"

Garcia isn't satisfied simply knowing it wasn't her fault.

"I'm going to sue his butt off."

[goodhue]

16. Yes, that is interesting.

I presume the person exists, but Sam Bacile may be a pseudonym. But her claim she called him is a little peculiar. I imagine she did not get him in person, if in fact she made such a call.

[fingrinn]

12. She is a liar

I watched some of this sickening movie on youtube and she clearly references Mohammed and calls him a child molester.

[goodhue]

14. Did you read the interview? The audio was dubbed.

In the script and during the shooting, nothing indicated the controversial nature of the final product, now called Muslim Innocence. Muhammed wasn't even called Muhammed; he was "Master George," Garcia said. The words Muhammed were dubbed over in post-production, as were essentially all other offensive references to Islam and Muhammed.

For example, at 9:03 in the trailer, Garcia berates her husband, who wants to send their daughter to Muhammed: "Is your Muhammed a child molester?" she says in the final product. But the words are dubbed over what she actually said. The line in the script—and the line Garcia gave during filming—was, "is your God a child molester," Garcia told us today.

Garcia was horrified when she saw the end product, and when protesters in Libya killed four U.S. Embassy employee.

"I had nothing to do really with anything. Now we have people dead because of a movie I was in. It makes me sick."

http://gawker.com/5942748

[tomm2thumbs]

15. it does appear they may have kept it secret from what I have seen

The actors appear to say a different character's name in the movie, and the word 'Muhammad' is voiced over/dubbed in where the character speaks another name. Terrible dubbing, but definitely not what the actors were saying in the script when it was shot. The sound matches nothing of the words being said by the actor.

It is literally a horrible shoot, where a scene of the desert has car tire tracks in it, and other obvious and laughable flaws, not to mention the acting, costumes, make up, sound - I could go on.

I'm guessing the producers and/or director knew they were doing something controversial and kept it quiet from the cast and crew.

[GreenTea]

17. Who's surprised with the republicans usual slimy tactics?

[goodhue]

18. I'm a little surprised some Egyptian Coptics would help stirs things up

Rather than try to simmer things down

[azurnoir]

25. Egyptian Copts to protest against ‘Islam insult’ film

deemed offensive to Islam that sparked violence outside U.S. missions in Egypt and Libya, they said in a statement.

The Maspero Youth Union and the Coalition of Coptic Egypt condemned “all sorts of contempt or disdain against any religion, as well as to the sowing of sedition between people who embrace different religions,” the statement said.

The MYU said it would be holding a vigil Wednesday night in front of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo in protest against the film.

<snip>

In Egypt, however, the perception in the media inflamed by fundamentalist Muslim preachers on satellite channels is that the film was made by Egyptian Copts living in the U.S.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Sep-13/187717-egyptian-copts-to-protest-against-islam-insult-film.ashx#ixzz26Ik62AC3

[Hell Hath No Fury]

19. Having worked on more than a few low budget films -

I can tell you what she is saying is perfectly plausible. Actors are often only given partial scripts, or scripts that have only their parts/dialogue. Rewrites are also often constantly going on. In all the years I have done film make-up work, I have never personally been given a script to work from, and most of the actors I was working on didn't know much beyond what their scenes involved.

Add to it the major dubbing that apparently went on, and I have no doubt at the woman's sincerity.

[tomm2thumbs]

20. exactly - and if you see any clips

they have dubbed in all the controversial spoken terms 'Islamic terrorists', 'Koran', etc... over words that were actually spoken by actors in the shoot and were scripted.

someone knew exactly what they were doing and planned around it

[goodhue]

22. Actually, it now appears it was this man . . .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014227816

[tanyev]

23. Curiouser and curiouser.

[Stryder]

24. Well thanks, now I have to go see the the trailor.

Wasn't planning to but this doesn't pass the smell test.
I wanna stay up on this sad story.
On edit. per smell test, the whole story not the OP.That sound s quite likely.

[BadGimp]

26. This whole thing smells funny

Real suspicious imo

[Stryder]

27. Dubbed? Ya think?

What are these people playing at?
That is not some "artist"trying to shock a name for himself.
This has a purpose.IMHO