By Dalia Hatuqa
(WASHINGTON POST) In 2013, actor Serena Rasoul found herself on a set where there were no scarves for her or the other women cast as hijabis, Muslim women who wear the hijab, or headscarf. She improvised, but that experience left a mark on her. “It dawned on me that there isn’t a home for Muslim talent,” Rasoul said. “We had generally been left out of this industry for so long. We were just on the fringes making our own content for our own spaces, not really entering the mainstream until the last five years or so.”
She didn’t act on the thought right away. “I didn’t even think it was possible to shift or move this industry, let alone influence it,” she said.
But after the murder of George Floyd in police custody in May 2020, she said, “We really started to see a racial reckoning, an injustice reckoning, of multiple industries opening up, and I thought it was the perfect time to take that discomfort that I felt and channel it into something meaningful.”
Although there are Muslim advocacy groups and Arab American casting agencies, none of the latter were focused on changing stereotypes of Muslims in TV and film by working with Muslim talent specifically.
So, Rasoul, who lives in Virginia and works as an international tradeanalyst by day, began to build a broad roster of Muslim and Middle Eastern, Southwest Asian and North African talent that includes actors, writers, directors, technicians, sound editors and costume designers. On Jan. 21 — the day after the Biden administration repealed what has widely become known as the “Muslim ban,” which barred entry to the United States to citizens of several majority-Muslim and other countries — she launched the talent agency Muslim American Casting.
What started as a side gig has turned into a much larger endeavor: Actors from the United States and beyond have been getting in touch with Rasoul in hopes of landing roles that are better suited to their needs and aspirations. She is working with three clients: two filmmakers and a major beauty brand.
“Many said they finally had a home an entity that advocated for them and understood their needs or their hesitations in possibly taking on some roles and could advocate for them when creating better characters,” she explained.