This is true
for most anyone in any industry. Take, for example, Cas Anvar.
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| This guy! |
You see, we
usually think of Cas Anvar as a sort of up and coming actor who just suddenly materialized, fully-grown, as everyone's favorite assassin. We all
know him and love him as Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, that awesome white-hooded star of the
Assassin’s Creed series, and an all-round badass that enjoys stabbing people with his
hidden blade and jumping off buildings into conveniently unattended haystacks.
And while it certainly takes talent to breathe personality and life into one of
my favorite characters, that talent didn’t just come out of thin air. While we
all might have first heard of him fairly recently, Cas Anvar has been
performing professionally for decades. And I don’t mean in a slew of
off-Broadway theater gigs, I saying that Cas been in front of the camera,
contributing to TV Shows and Movies that you loved long before you ever heard
the word “parkour.”
The story starts in 1994 and 1995. If you
were a fan of 90s crime dramas, then you most certainly have heard of Sirens; the slice-of-life story of three female polices officers who struggle
to balance their work as newbie cops with their increasingly difficult personal
lives. And if you followed the show, you most certainly
remember that unforgettable three episode guest star: Dr. Fitch. For those of you who didn’t click the link, that was Cas Anvar.
Fast forward to 1996, and Anvar lands smaller
roles in TV Films like Ivana Trump's For Love Alone and Everything to Gain before making it big as a major player
(Goldwin) in Psychopath – that thrilling mind game that pit a high-powered prosecutor against an
all-too savvy serial killer.
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| Old School. |
1998 and 1999 roll around. It’s almost the
turn of the millennium, and Anvar adds more shows to his resume, including The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo and La Femme Nikita. Those might seem like small potatoes, but they build to a
substantial role in Sublet.
Then the millennium turns and it’s one role
after another - and they’re getting bigger. In
2001, he’s Leonard in Cause of Death, and
then Agent McCoomb in Hidden Agenda. Then in
2003, he’s in Shattered Glass and Timeline. And then, The Terminal (remember
that Steve Spielberg piece), The Unit, and NCIS among other roles from 2004 to 2007!
By the time the decade finishes out, he’s
guest starred on LOST and In Plain Sight, before finally landing that job with
Ubisoft that we all know him for.
And that’s only a small snippet of his total
IMDB page. You could even watch the man in action in some of those pieces and
more right here, but that still doesn’t cover the total breadth of what Cas Anvar has
accomplished long before we all knew who he was.
One might call this rise meteoric, but I
would prefer to call it inspirational. Obviously, Anvar grew up dreaming of
becoming an actor. He worked hard over the course of decades to build that life for himself. And, in
spite of the events of 9/11 and the socio-political paradigm shifts that
occurred as a resulted, he managed to work against the grain and establish
himself as a middle eastern actor of importance.
So if your pipe dreams feel distant and
unobtainable, then please go ahead and think of Cas Anvar. Personally, I can’t
wait to see where he is ten years from now - when everyone knows him as
Alex Kamal from The Expanse.
