More/Medavoy recently hired a new manager, Will Atlas(who I couldn’t be more excited about). I’ve been introducing Will to clients recently…
More/Medavoy recently hired a new manager, Will Atlas(who I couldn’t be more excited about). I’ve been introducing Will to clients recently and the other day, he met Rahel Romahn. I always give a little backstory while making an introduction as I told Rahel’s, I repeatedly found myself thinking, “How is this guy here right now?”
Rahel’s is a story in progress and, on the surface, it’s a pretty common one in Hollywood. He’s an actor trying to make it in Hollywood.
But it’s so much deeper than the typical E! True Hollywood Story and it feels like it’s currently at an inflection point.
I say this with no exaggeration: Rahel is going to be one of the greatest actors of all time and he is right on the precipice of his huge break.
This has been a long time coming, and it has taken an extraordinary amount of hope, resilience, and determination. I have complete confidence he is about to take off, and I think his story is one that can both inspire and remind aspiring actors to be patient and keep putting in the work.
Rahel is a Kurd who was born in Iraq at the peak of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Soon after his birth, his family fled to Turkey, and when Rahel was 4, they emigrated again to Australia.
Inspired by Pacino in SCARFACE, Rahel decided at the age of 13 that he wanted to be an actor. He enrolled in a local acting class and quickly discovered he had an abundance of natural talent. He started booking consistently in Australia until a major break starring opposite Michael Sheen in the Sydney Opera House’s production of AMADEUS — a play adapted from a movie my father produced 40 years ago.
Due in part to this role, Rahel won the Heath Ledger Scholarship, one of Australia’s most prestigious acting prizes. That’s how I met him — connected through longtime client and past Heath Ledger winner, Bella Heathcote.
Over the past few years, I’ve gotten to know Rahel well through Zoom as his career has taken off in Australia. He’s starred in some of the biggest American productions to come through there, including SHANTARAM and MAD MAX: FURIOSA and recently THE SURFER. He was well on his way to becoming a household name in Australia, but that wasn’t enough for Rahel.
I advised Rahel to stay in Australia and keep up the momentum because getting a green card would be a tremendous challenge. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” as they say. But Rahel was hungry and, being the hustler he is, he enlisted the help of some American colleagues to write letters on his behalf to expedite his green card application. Astonishingly, it worked, I think in large part because of how incredibly glowing these notes were. I mean, look at these:
“[Rahel] is without doubt an actor of extraordinary ability in the truest sense.”
“[Rahel has] emerged as one of the most original, charismatic, and surprising actors of his generation.”
“Rahel is a supremely talented and dedicated actor. His commitment to his craft, his professionalism, and his ability to bring depth and authenticity to his roles is exemplary. He has a natural talent for embodying complex characters, and his performances are always nuanced, layered, and deeply affecting.”
He proved me wrong and got a green card faster than I’ve ever seen. When he arrived in LA about six months ago, I picked him up from the airport and took him to my favorite spot at Venice Beach. I had never met this man except through a Zoom call, but we quickly fell into a familiar rapport. We listened to music, I tried to moonwalk and, naturally, Rahel taught me how to moonwalk properly. We found a lost iPhone and against my presumption that we would never find the owner, Rahel eagerly managed to track the guy down.
It was immediately apparent to me that this guy who moved across the world to chase a famously insane dream had the temperament and the heart to succeed here. Like everybody, it would come down to will.
That evening, I dropped him off at Australians in Film, the hub for industry Australians at Raleigh Studios. It wasn’t until four days later that I realized he had nowhere to sleep and stayed awake all night at those offices since he arrived. The guy had next to no money and a mortgage in Australia and tapped into some resourcefulness to get his legs under him. He also managed to get a lease in a week, another one for the record books.
Very shortly after arriving in LA, Rahel was called into an audition for a Tom Cruise film in-person. He ended up going back 3 times. But they went older for the role. Classic.
Now, if Rahel bet that big on himself and booked a huge movie like that immediately, I’d have him picking my lottery numbers. It never works that cleanly. And right now, he’s in the grind.
I got him an agent, but auditions have slowed down recently. He’s working four jobs, including being an usher at Cirque du Soleil, walking celebrities to their seats. None of them know how big he was on the other side of the world and how extraordinarily talented he is.
It’s the exact opposite of his life in Australia, where he was constantly working, constantly in demand. He very easily could have been a big fish in Australia. Instead, he bet everything on himself, moved to LA, and started over as a small fish in the biggest of ponds.
It’s going to work out. I’ve never seen talent like his. I’ve never seen anybody so motivated. Right now, they’re casting another huge movie, and the team didn’t think Rahel was right. He wanted to prove them wrong, so he wrote his own scene and self-taped it, playing both roles. I’ve never seen anything like it — he’s so immersed in the scene you would have no idea that it’s the same person playing both roles.
It’s this kind of determination and out-of-the-box creativity that gets you noticed. Better yet, it’s authenticity.
Rahel’s not trying to show off; he literally just didn’t have someone else to tape with and he loves this project, so he just went ahead and did it. It wasn’t even a question.
Rahel’s climbed from the bottom to the top once and willingly dove back down. He’s betting on himself, and things are starting to move fast in the right direction. It’s a wonderful thing to watch. And now you can say you were on him before his big break, too.
