Alexander Siddig Talks ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ 20 Years Later

Twenty years after Ridley Scott’s epic Kingdom of Heaven was released in theaters, the (far superior) director’s cut is getting a steelbook 4K release on May 27 and a one-night-only theatrical release on May 14.

In honor of the film’s anniversary, Vulture caught up with Alexander Siddig to talk about his experience starring opposite Orlando Bloom and Ghassan Massoud. It’s a terrific interview, but before we get to some excerpts, those of you who have been around Sid City for a long time probably remember the excitement surrounding Kingdom of Heaven. It was Siddig’s first major post-Star Trek film, starring one of the hottest actors of the day (Orlando Bloom in his first true leading role, coming off of Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean) and directed by a well-known and respected filmmaker, Ridley Scott.

Our Kingdom of Heaven coverage was on a pre-blogosphere version of Sid City, so most of it exists in my archives. However, you can get an idea of what that looked like via the Wayback Machine. We were invited to cover the world premiere in London, where two Sid Citizens hit up the red carpet to interview Siddig. Watch as he recognizes them, then promptly spends way more time talking to his fan club than any of the other press outlets. Some things never change.

Now, back to the Vulture interview via MSN. This, to my knowledge, is the lengthiest interview Siddig has ever given about Kingdom of Heaven. Writer Roxana Hadidi centers her questions on the sheer audacity of a Hollywood blockbuster that paints Muslims as the good guys and white/English invaders as the bad guys, less than 4 years after 9/11. Siddig has spoken about playing an Arab in a post-9/11 world, but this is the most he’s talked about playing this specific role (outside of the Sid City Social Club).

On the audition process:

I sent in a tape, and I was picked. My advantage was that of all the Arab actors in the world at that time, I was probably the best-known Western one, even though I hadn’t done many movies. You would have to think very hard to find “out” Arabs. [Laughs.] Having been born in Sahara, I pretty much fit the bill. It was like, He can communicate these sentences without an Arabic accent that he can’t overcome. And so the Western audiences, who primarily speak English, will understand the nuances better, which is generally the problem when you have actors who don’t speak the language as their first language. It was an English script, a very nuanced script. All the English supporting cast do very well with that sort of nuance, and Ridley hires those actors perennially. David Thewlis and Brendan Gleeson, that caliber of stage actor, can chew those words up really well. I was lucky because I was in that category of someone who could speak the language and yet be perceived as foreign enough to do the role. I got away with murder, really.

On the director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven:

It’s way better than the first cut. The first cut got panned by the critics, and the person who suffered was Orlando, because they thought he was just rubbish as a lead. But had they understood what was happening, and why his character was kind of failing upwards, and how he didn’t really know why he was there and he was just a little boy, if they understood that about it, they would not be looking for Mel Gibson. They would be going, “Oh, this is a much more interesting take.”

On working with Orlando Bloom:

In terms of acting, I was really lucky that Orlando was the other guy in that scene, because he is a very kindred spirit. He might not think so, but I did. He was a similar sort of human being to me: lover, not a fighter; try and be nice to everybody. He had a lot of work to do, and he was constantly with his trainer doing all sorts of annoying things which I would have hated — tons of bottles of whatever the hell weight lifters drink, chicken and rice, getting up at 4 a.m. to do his workouts before going to the movie at 6. But he was a really sweet man. Orlando had already made several big films already, and so he was a total pro at this stuff. He made me feel very comfortable. It was a relatively nice, easy way in, and given that I wasn’t really talking much to Ridley [earlier Siddig notes that Ridley rarely interacted with actors on set], the fact that we were working quite well together and we had a certain chemistry — I think audiences could probably see a parallel in our characters, in terms of our souls.

On adding heart and soul to the movie:

It was really important to me, and to writer Bill Monahan, that this character was the window into the soul of the Arab world. Saladin was taciturn. Very wise and powerful, but [settles face into a blank expression]. Khaled Nabawy’s character, the mullah, is just fanatical. There needed to be some method of reaching through the movie to the audience to go, “This is where some of the soul of the film is.” Those scenes with Orlando are very important because they said to everybody, “We may be at war with each other, but we really love each other.” It’s a bit like that story from the First World War — on Christmas Day, the Germans and the English soldiers got out of the trenches and they played soccer, and then they went back. That scene was kind of a soccer moment. Let’s put down all the stuff and say hi, and know that we’re both human; then let’s get back to it. And also it was important, I think, to Ridley and to Bill, that the real aggressors here are … white. [Laughs.] Which is what comes across, and a lot of people didn’t like that.

The full interview includes much more of Siddig’s perspective on playing that character plus how Syriana, which Siddig filmed right after KOH, impacted his career, working with Ghassan Massoud, and much more. Read it here.