By Mike McCarthy
Usman Ally is a name that you may not know, but you have seen him and right now he is blowing up your television screen. Usman is returning to the hit show Veep for season 6 on HBO as Al Jaffar and is starring in the new show Nobodies as the studio executive that you do not want to meet. And if you have Netflix, which let’s face it everyone does, you will see him as the Hook Handed Man on A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Before he started lighting up the screen, Usman spent nine years in theater in Chicago and New York. Now that he is in Los Angeles, his work and roles keep piling up and we love seeing him being able to do what he loves. Usman told us that on Veep and Nobodies a lot of the jokes are improv and the casts are given plenty of freedom to collaborate on the scenes.
Not only is Usman an actor but he has been working on some scripts for plays in his very little downtime. Usman is an incredible talent and he’s only just getting started. Check him out on Nobodies Wednesday nights on TV Land and on Veep later in the season on HBO on Sunday nights. Definitely make sure to binge watch Unfortunate Series of Events on Netflix to see the Hook Handed Man.
Wingman Magazine: Nobodies, Veep, Lemony Snicket all in a row… you must not like having too much time off.
Usman Ally: (laughs) I love working and in our industry when you get to work back to back on shows you have to jump at the opportunities. I feel fortunate to have that kind of work. I find sometimes that when I am not working, I can’t always find things to do or to fill my day so it’s kind of my go to and is my personality. I am a bit of a workaholic. You have to have some sort of a project going on when you aren’t shooting and need to find extracurricular activities. Whether it be within the field like writing or directing or something completely outside of entertainment all together.
Wingman Magazine: Your newest show, Nobodies just started. Tell us about the show and your character, Gavin.
Usman Ally: Nobodies is about three “nobodies” (chuckles) I guess, named Rachel, Larry, Hugh who are all performers from the Groundlings in real life. They are friends with people like Melissa McCarthy and Maya Rudolph who were previously part of the Groundlings who have gone on to have very successful careers. They have always been one step away from having that same thing in their own lives, but they know a lot of famous people. The tv show is very loosely based on their lives and they are playing a heightened version of themselves in a way. In the show they have written a script for a movie called Mr. First Lady which is about the first male First lady. They are pitching it to different networks and I happen to be a studio executive that they are pitching the film to. In the first episode they lie to me and say that Melissa McCarthy has agreed to be in the movie. Throughout the season the lies start to pile up and they try and get their well known friends to be in their movie. My character as the season goes on figures out what they are doing and I make it a point in my life to make their lives a living hell. I am like their nemesis that wants to get back at them for wasting my time. I get to play an exaggerated studio executive that we have all interacted with, just completely over the top.
Wingman Magazine: In a Series of Unfortunate Events you are the Hook-Handed Man. Did you ever read the books or get some material to go over when you were cast?
Usman Ally: I was not familiar with the books at all. I think the books came out for teens when I was in my twenties so I am one generation older than the main fanbase. I had seen the film with Jim Carrey which is quite different from our show in a lot of ways. Since booking the role and working on the show I have read a few of the books. I was trying to read along and see how similar our scripts were to the books, which they are really similar which I have been hearing is what the fans have been really happy about. That’s where I am at now. I haven’t read anymore into what we would be doing in season 2 yet, but I plan to. We had Daniel Handler, who is Lemony Snicket in the writer’s rooms and oversaw the writing of a lot of the scripts. It definitely helps when you have the actual writer there to make sure you are being true to his scripts.
Wingman Magazine: The show has been picked up for a second season, not surprising. Anything you can elaborate on at all, I know it’s still early.
Usman Ally: We start shooting sometime this month up in Vancouver which is really an amazing place. I am not sure how many of the next books we will be covering in season 2. In season 1 we covered one book every two episodes, so it may follow that formula in season 2. Not sure how many episodes we have slated for season 2, that is really up to Netflix. It is exciting and I have read some drafts of a few of the scripts and they are great, a lot of the same tone and feeling of season 1. I don’t think there is really anything else like it on tv and I am really excited.
Wingman magazine: I know you can’t talk too much about the upcoming season of Veep, but tell us a little bit about your character, Al Jaffar as a whole.
Usman Ally: In Season 5, All Jaffar just sort of shows up and helps Selina very briefly in making a deal with the Chinese, a sort of go between. Al Jaffar comes back in the newest season and is traveling around the globe with Selina. All I can is that Al Jaffar plays a much more substantial role in this season of Veep. I don’t show up until about halfway through the season but it’s a great season. It is my favorite show on television and very rarely does an actor get to work on a show that they love. Julia (Louis-Dreyfus) and everyone on the show is absolutely fantastic.
Wingman Magazine: Let’s talk about Lifeline, which is by the great Dwayne Johnson. I know you are filming now, is there anything you can tell us about it?
Usman Ally: Lifeline is about time travel and is a sci-fi show. It’s about an insurance company so to speak that can go into the future and try to stop things from happening to the client, which brings about some moral problems. There are a lot of ethical or morally challenging questions like if you can go into the future to save one person, shouldn’t you try and save more people? My character plays the founder of this company, a sort of Tony Stark character who has morally ambiguous intentions. It’s great for someone like me to have a character that has more than what you see and more going on. Our cast is fantastic, led by Zach Gilford who is just awesome.
Wingman Magazine: This is a big change for making shows for YouTube… this is pretty revolutionary. What do you think of all of these different streaming websites and apps?
Usman Ally: It is amazing isn’t it? I didn’t even know that YouTube Red existed until I signed on for this show. From my understanding, it seems like they are hoping that Lifeline will be their first big budget production that will put them in competition with Netflix and the other streaming mediums. It is sometimes really hard to keep track of it all though. The one thing that we have to make sure of is that the content across all of these sites and mediums is of high quality and with all of these exclusives they haven’t let us down yet. You can get away with a lot of stuff on these streaming sites that you can’t on regular tv which gives people more reason to create more content for them. I just hope there isn’t an over saturation of content that we get lost in it. I know it happens to me when people ask if I had seen a show and I add it to my Netflix queue which I think has over 100 titles on it (laughs).
Wingman Magazine: I believe you are also one of the voices in the upcoming Uncharted game this year. What can you tell us about that work and have you played the games before?
Usman Ally: The new Uncharted game is called Uncharted: Lost Legacy and I did the voice and motion capture for the main villain in the game and he’s called Assav. He is basically this resistance leader in India who is a doctor and has this charisma that gets people to follow him but has become more corrupted as time has passed.