‘Outsourced’ actor to play a stockbroker in the film.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Actor Rizwan Manji will hit theaters this Christmas in the highest-profile movie of his career thus far.
The Indian American actor, best known for his roles in 2000’s American Desi and the short-lived NBC sitcom “Outsourced,” plays the role of stockbroker Khalil in The Wolf of Wall Street, the highly anticipated new film from Academy Award-winner Martin Scorsese (The Departed).
Manji will share the screen with some big Hollywood names, including Academy Award nominees Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic) and Jonah Hill (Moneyball), Academy Award-winner Jean Dujardin (The Artist), and well-known actors Matthew McConaughey (The Lincoln Lawyer) and Kyle Chandler (Zero Dark Thirty).
DiCaprio’s other star vehicle this year, The Great Gatsby, featured Indian screen legend Amitabh Bachchan in his first-ever Hollywood role.
The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the true-life memoir of Jordan Belfort, a young stockbroker who came to Wall Street in the 1990s and set up a boiler room brokerage scheme that sold penny stocks to thousands of investors. The fraud led to Belfort becoming a millionaire several times over, and his antics have already inspired one movie: 2000’s Boiler Room.
Belfort was arrested years later, and in 1998, he was indicted for securities fraud and money laundering. Belfort received a prison sentence of four years, and was ordered to pay a staggering $110 million in restitution. He was later released after only serving 22 months for good behavior.
It is unclear whether or not Manji’s character is based on a real person, or is a construct of screenwriter Terrence Winter (HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire”).
The film is also co-produced by Riza Aziz, an up-and-coming producer and investment banker who is also behind Out of the Furnace, the Christian Bale film which released in cinemas last week.
The Wolf of Wall Street opens in theaters across the country on Christmas Day.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com