Leading up to the release of The Kite Runner, adapted from Khaled Hosseini’s novel of the same name, actors Khalid Abdalla and Homayoun Ershadi sat down with the press to share their thoughts on how they adapted to the Afghani culture, Western stereotypes, and the dynamic relationships within the film.

Khalid Abdalla on the relationship between father and son in Afghanistan:

"It doesn’t feel different for me. You have three people: the father, Baba, Amir, and Hassan. All three of whom are just unable to love each other properly, because there’s an imbalance there. You have a father who seems to love the servant more than he loves his own son and a servant who realizes that his best friend isn’t getting enough love because of him. That kind of creates the difficult dynamic between all of them. In terms of formality, I can think of lots of American films where you have the sort of soldier father... to me it feels like a normal troubled relationship between a father and a son. In fact that’s why I think the story is so effecting, because there’s a journey in it that so many people recognize, that desire to have your father be proud of you."

On the film becoming a political or propaganda tool:

Homayoun Ershadi: I don’t think at all. It’s not a political film; it’s not talking about politics. I think it’s about the family and I’m not sure if the kids in the film are in danger, because up until three or four days ago they were living in Kabul and they were living very normally. The problem was after releasing the movie, what is going to happen to them?

Khalid Abdalla: I also think - the reaction overwhelmingly from Afghans and other people, either from the Middle East or elsewhere, has been one that recognizes that this is the first film in the history of Hollywood where the first point of contact with the region is a human story, it’s a family story and not political violence. And to see that, speaking for myself as someone from the Middle East, it gives me so much pride to be part of a film that does that. We had one Afghan lady at one screening, who stood up and really she wanted to share her feelings with [an] audience, mainly she was talking to us on the panel, but she said, "Thank you, I feel represented." Overwhelmingly that’s been the response, which goes into, again, those elements - yes, there’s lots that’s culturally unique about it, but take Afghanistan, it’s a country at one point that had over 6 million refugees. When people say the word Afghanistan, they think of the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden and terrorism, and lots of negative things before they think of anything positive. They think of the people who brutalized the country rather than the people who’ve been brutalized. When you think of the things that made 6 million people leave that country, something like The Kite Runner becomes a drop in the ocean. To have a film, a story, and a book that redresses that balance in whatever small way I think is something that anyone who has seen the film, from whatever background, has recognized. It’s not a political film, and yet at the same time it has a political effect in that it’s the first of its kind.

Homayoun Ershadi: Right, which is a propaganda film. But it’s not political propaganda, it’s human propaganda. So it puts, again, that part of the world on the map and talk of the human beings and that Muslims are not all terrorists. You can say in every religion there are good people and there are bad people. I remember the first terrorist was Carlos. He was not Muslim, so should we say that all people who are not Muslims are terrorists? No. There are good people, bad people - is it propaganda? Yes, but human propaganda. Regardless of what culture you have, what religion you have, it’s international. We talk about love, redemption, hate, guilt, and these issues are international.

Khalid Abdalla and Homayoun Ershadi Interpret The Kite Runner Page 2