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Raz Adoti, known for his roles in Amistad, Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Doom, will next appear alongside Vivica A. Fox in Cover, from Fox Entertainment.

THE STAR SCOOP:
Can you tell us about where you’re from, your background?

RAZ ADOTI:
I was born and raised in London. Both my parents are Nigerian, so I try to get back to Nigeria really regularly. My grandmother’s still out there, and a whole bunch of family’s still out there. My direct family, my parents, my brothers and sisters, they’re all in London. I moved out here about eight years ago now to pursue my acting career, but the first time I came out here was about eleven, twelve years ago, when I did Amistad. That’s the first movie that brought me to the states, and after that I was here pretty much every year until I picked up and moved out.

THE STAR SCOOP:
You’ve got a movie coming out, Cover. What is it about?

RAZ ADOTI:
Well basically, from a personal point of view, it’s about a man that’s marked, who is the character that I play. He’s a Philadelphia native, and he moves out to Atlanta, to go to school, to become a psychiatrist. While he’s out there, he meets and falls in love, gets married, has a kid, and the story continues later when him and his wife and his kid are moving back from Atlanta to Philadelphia, where basically, aspects of his past now start to raise their ugly heads. So, it becomes for the character I play, a triumph of the human spirit, as well as a murder mystery in there. There’s a few layers.

THE STAR SCOOP:
Do you think that because of these layers, it will appeal to a wide variety of audiences?

RAZ ADOTI:

Yeah, I hope so, because, socially, some of the things that are raised in this movie are extremely relevant, and there are definitely things that at the very least, we should be talking about, and if this movie does nothing more than start some conversation, then it’s definitely served a purpose.

THE STAR SCOOP:
When will the film come out?

RAZ ADOTI:
It’s the 22nd of February.

THE STAR SCOOP:
How did you get this role, and what made you want to be a part of this movie?

RAZ ADOTI:
As an actor, you always get calls or scripts falling on your desk for various roles. This is one of the ones I read, and I loved. I instantly went in for it. I was actually surprised to see [the] director, Bill Duke there right in the audition process. Usually you don’t meet the director until maybe the second time out. I was completely enamored by him being there. [I'm] a big fan of his work, and I have a lot of respect for him as a director as well. I read through it, and everything went well. I’ve just got a lot of respect for artists who try and not just to make movies, but they also want to convey a message, especially if the message is to help the majority, or even the minority, as long as the message is to help. I think it’s always worthwhile, and there’s a reluctance, I think, not in Hollywood, but around the world to show people of color and definitely African Americas in real life dramas, in real situations, because a lot of the movies that we’re seen in, not to say they’re not good movies, but we do get a disproportionate amount of movies that are comedies, and musicals and things of that nature. Obviously, we are very complex and diverse a people as anyone else, and we have our dramas and our thrillers that also need to be told, and I feel that this is one of them. It’s a breath of fresh air, dealing with some real human issues, and characters most people should be able to identify with, or at least sympathize with

THE STAR SCOOP:
Is there anything you’re working on currently?

RAZ ADOTI:
I’ve got a couple of things in the pipeline. One of them is a show on FOX called Extra Time. I’m still waiting for a date on that. The main thing in my life right now is a movie that I’ve actually written myself. The working title is Area Boys, and it’s kind of semi-autobiographical. It’s inspired by events in my mother’s life and also my own life. It starts out in London, England, and it ends up in Nigeria. I’m telling this story from the heart, it’s got a lot of elements of real life situations that I experienced in it. It’s also showing a broader audience another view of life in Africa and what it is to be African in a sense. There are a lot of movies made by non Africans attempting to depict life there, and it falls way short of the reality for most on that beautiful continent. Hopefully, this is a humble attempt as well to kind of show another side, the beautiful side. People don’t seem to realize that people out there, rolling in Hummers and Escalades the same way they do here, go to clubs, you know, living life. You watch CNN, and you’d never believe that was possible.

THE STAR SCOOP:
To all the people reading this, what do you want to say directly to them?

RAZ ADOTI:
Well I hope you go and see the movie. I hope you take the lessons from the movie. We can all apply it to our lives. It’s like a microcosm of all our lives in a sense, not that we’re dealing with directly the issues raised in the movie, but in terms of universal theme, such as honesty, and just being a better person tomorrow than what we were today, just constant improvement. I think that’s always relevant. Thanks for checking me out [laughs].