jailed during the post-election demonstrations, will be made into a film by US political satirist Jon Stewart, the two casually announced last Monday.
Last spring, Stewart purchased the life rights to the content of Bahari’s book, Then They Came For Me, but no mention of his intentions were made until now.
Bahari, a guest on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on June 7, confirmed the pair were working on a film together. Before ending the televised interview, Stewart said, “I do want to say, in the spirit of full disclosure, this is how impressed I am with this man’s story, and his courage, and this book: you and I are working together on a film about this. I have suggested, obviously, Matt Damon as you. It’s up to you, the casting will be up to you!”
Bahari responded, “I was thinking about Will Smith.”
While they joked about the film’s casting, Stewart and Bahari were serious about sharing Bahari’s story. Bahari was imprisoned in 2009 for being a western spy, a concern partly instigated by an interview he gave to The Daily Show’s Jason Jones, who was pretending to be a spy for comedic effect. Apparently, the authorities had not noticed the laugh track, Bahari said on NPR, and took the whole thing literally.
Bahari said his interrogators also asked him about his Facebook page, saying, “I am a member of two fanclubs on Facebook: Anton Chekhov, the Russian playwright, and Pauly Shore. The Pauly Shore one was an inside joke with a friend…. I have to admit, I love Encino man.”
Bahari said the interrogators were suspicious that Chekhov was a Jew, but dismissed allegations based on Facebook when they learned Chekhov was not Jewish.
Despite the seeming triviality of the causes for Bahari’s detainment, he was imprisoned for 118 days, 107 in solitary confinement. According to the description of his book on Amazon, he drew strength during that time by remembering the courage of his father and sister, who were jailed by the Shah in 1950s and Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1980s, respectively.