new York
Laith Nakli sits on his living room couch, holding a book written by a man who saved his life. There is a disturbing image of handcuffed hands on the cover. But Nakli hopes the book’s title — “A Second Chance” — is a sign that U.S. District Judge Frederic Block might save it once again.
Because Nakli is not supposedly sitting in sweatpants under a giant portrait of Marlon Brando in his Manhattan apartment on this September afternoon. Today, the 56-year-old actor is expected to pack his bags and fly to Los Angeles for a prestigious event of which he will be one of the stars.
A film that he considers to be the greatest film of his career is being released. On screen, Nakli will star opposite Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali.
But he won’t be joining Ali and other actors at the Hollywood red carpet premiere of “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.” He’s seen reports that ICE is detaining people at airports and flying to California seems too risky.
Months ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated to make the trip. But Nakli is learning to adapt to a new reality: His long-closed immigration case was reopened this year — one of nearly 150,000 cases the Trump administration has decided to send back to court since January 2025 as part of its immigration crackdown.
And now, as he promotes a film that’s garnering rave reviews and awards buzz, Nakli is also preparing for a court date that could lead to his deportation.
Over the years, he has played a wide range of characters, from an American military sergeant to a crime boss. But the real-life drama he now experiences off-screen has no storyline he can follow. What happens next seems completely unpredictable, and his case offers a revealing window into the ups, downs and uncertainties that many immigrants face as they fight for a chance to express themselves in the United States.
“It’s a crazy fear you live in,” he said. “Nowadays, anything can happen. »
But he clings to a glimmer of hope.
Another ruling by Block, the federal judge who convicted him nearly 30 years ago, could give him a chance to stay in the country, Nakli says.
The actor was born to Syrian parents in the United Kingdom and is a citizen of both countries. He arrived in the United States from Damascus in 1990 and soon after began pursuing a career as a professional bodybuilder, winning the title “Mr. Syria” in 1996.
But bodybuilding, Nakli says, took him down a dangerous path.
Nakli pleaded guilty in 2000 to four counts of conspiracy to possess and distribute controlled substances — in his case, illegal steroids — charges that ultimately landed him in immigration court.
On the day of Nakli’s sentencing in federal court, Block offered words of encouragement.
“You have obviously recognized the fact that steroids are a problem and should not be accepted, you have also accepted your responsibility in this regard and your rehabilitation has been remarkable,” he said.
The charges carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The judge sentenced Nakli to three years of probation, community service and a $3,000 fine.
This, Nakli says, gave him a chance to take a new direction in his life. He left bodybuilding behind and took up acting.
He trained at a studio in New York and eventually helped run the program, becoming a mentor to generations of young actors. If he had stayed in bodybuilding, he said, “I probably would have died.”
Nakli now hopes that the judge remains as reasonable and understanding as he remembers.
Earlier this year, Nakli’s attorney filed a motion in federal court seeking to vacate the prior criminal conviction. When Nakli pleaded guilty in 2000, the petition says, his then-attorney did not inform him that his plea could result in serious immigration consequences.
“If I had known that this plea resulted in mandatory deportation regardless of the sentence, I would never have agreed to it,” Nakli wrote in an affidavit, noting that he would have insisted on going to trial or pushed his attorney to negotiate a plea deal for a different charge.. “My life, my family and my future were all in the United States.”
In 2011, the Department of Homeland Security charged Nakli with fraud, alleging he failed to acknowledge the arrest in immigration documents. The immigration court summons also cited the drug charges, calling them “crimes of moral turpitude.”
But the government ended its efforts to deport him and administratively closed the case two years later.
Since then, Nakli fears that the case will be reopened. In an interview with CNN in 2024, he described this feeling as a dark cloud that follows him everywhere.
“Is the sun going to come through at the end? Or is it going to hail? Is it going to be a storm? You don’t know.”
In a crowded theater at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, director Bassam Tariq spots Nakli in the second row.
A few minutes earlier, many people in the room gasped at a pivotal moment in the film regarding Nakli’s character. Now, Tariq invokes Nakli’s name as he answers questions after this private screening of “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.”
“One of the actors from the film is here,” Tariq explains. “He’s truly a phenomenal collaborator.”
Nakli stands up and the room erupts with applause and cheers.
At a reception that followed, the buzz around the film was energizing. Nakli looks around at the table filled with fancy hors d’oeuvres and the crowd of people.
“I feel good,” he said. “It’s almost like I’m living in the Matrix.”
His next immigration court hearing will be in a month. But at this party, you’ll never know. Nakli doesn’t talk much about his immigration record; he worries that it will make some people uncomfortable – or that they will stop seeing him for who he is.
As he walks through the party, groups of strangers happily shout the name of one of its most famous characters.
“Uncle Nassem!” they say, as if greeting a friend they’ve known for years.
A fan, an aspiring filmmaker, asks for advice on getting started in the industry.
Nakli remembers what Quintin Tarantino once said to him. At the time, Nakli owned a candle store in Greenwich Village, where he said the famous manager was a regular customer. One day, Nakli had the courage to ask if he had any advice for an aspiring actor and writer.
“Don’t wait for the phone to ring. Do it yourself,” Tarantino told him.
Decades later, Nakli works on numerous writing projects and is recognized by strangers for his work as an actor – living the future he had barely dared to dream of.
“Make your short film. Create your own path,” Nakli tells the budding artist. “Don’t wait for anyone.”
Even today, several decades into his acting career, Nakli is still trying to chart his own path.
Since moving to New York in the 1990s, he has driven for an auto service, worked at a falafel shop, been a bouncer at a bar, opened a candle store and helped run an acting studio.
He is friendly to strangers. He is quick to laugh. One day, he said, he jumped onto the subway tracks with several other people to help rescue a fallen man.
Actors like Ramy Youssef credit Nakli with playing a key role in their careers.
“The way Laith helped me is the way he helps everyone he meets… Making introductions, lending people money, housing someone between places – Laith is that kind of person,” Youssef wrote in a letter several years ago supporting Nakli’s request for a presidential pardon.
Nakli couldn’t be more different from many of the characters he’s known for.
In “Ramy,” Nakli plays a relative of Youssef’s character: Uncle Nassem, described by critics as “bigoted, violent” and “unbearably rude.”
And in “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother,” he plays Mike Mahmoudi, a crime boss who leaves threatening voicemails and travels with an entourage of armed goons.
But even in deeply flawed characters, Nakli makes a point of finding their humanity.
“There’s something about Mike that just wants to belong to something important. … That’s why his men are like his children,” Nakli said during a recent Q&A about the film. The character, he told the audience, has a deep “sense of loneliness.”
“It’s profound. And I’ll speak for myself, as an immigrant…I understand this on very extreme levels – the loneliness of wanting to belong. Even today, every day is a fight for belonging.”
A few years ago, Nakli played the role of an immigration lawyer in the film…
Gn entert
