From military hardships to winning the Saed Soheili Cinema House Award
Saed Soheili spoke about the difficulties he went through on his way to the cinema.
Theater News Base: The actor of Mashhad Cinema said in the event of human movement that was held last evening, May 17, in Mashhad, about the path he has taken to become an actor: I have loved acting since I was a child and I used to go to different cinema offices to test. But they did not trust me and usually offered me very short plans. This process continued until 2008 and at that time I had to go to the army. I was sent to Neishabour for military service, I started my service. There I met a person from Tehran and I changed my place for military service and went to Tehran. After that, I went to the Holy Defense Cinema Town.
“My route was very far,” he added. That means I had to wake up at 5 in the morning and get in a few vehicles to get to work. I was on the road for 6 hours a day, and my job there was to dust, pour tea, burn the garbage, and clean the toilets.
Soheili added: “When I left my post to watch the filming of a sequence of films being produced, I thought that maybe I could play better than the actors in those films, but I did not know if this was a real feeling or not and I was not sure.” The commander also sometimes noticed that I was leaving my post and overworked, but I continued to work.
“One day when I had to burn garbage in the middle of the desert, I was staring at the fire, thinking and not knowing that there was explosives in the garbage,” he said. Suddenly a fire broke out and I felt my face burn. I reached for a mirror and saw that my face was black and that no matter how much water I poured on my face, it would not clear. My eyelashes and eyebrows were also completely gone. I was worried in those circumstances and I thought to myself that my only acting tool could be my face.
The actor continued: The commander allowed me to leave for medical treatment, but no car took me there to go to the hospital and I shouted why no one saw me. Eventually that time passed, my face got better and I was cast in the lead role of a movie after serving. I think God heard my voice the day I cried with a burned face.
Soheili said: I became the best actor of the festival for the film I played, and after that I played the film Patrol Ershad. In 2012, I went to a cinema house festival and watched Shahab Hosseini win an award. I told myself then that I should win this award 5 years later, but 2 years later I was able to win that award and kissed the statue like Shahab Hosseini.
He added: “It was interesting to me why I had forgotten this memory.