Arian Moayed truly believes that if it wasn’t for the 20 years’ worth of community-based theatrical productions and outreach via his production and education company, Waterwell, he would never be where he is today — with a recurring role in HBO’s uber-successful Succession, co-starring in Shondaland’s latest Netflix show, Inventing Anna, and lining up high-profile films in the pipeline.
“It’s kind of the reason I’m even talking to you,” says Moayed, who grew up in Chicago after he and his family left Iran in the mid-1980s. “When I was writing or producing or directing or raising money or even acting with Waterwell, it gave me more confidence, and I realized [that could translate] to other parts of my life.”
Moayed moved to New York City wanting to be an actor and artist who creates for the betterment of humanity not just for entertainment. In 2002, he co-founded Waterwell, a socially conscious and civic-minded production and education company. He’s also, as we mentioned, in one of HBO’s most popular series and has had recurring roles on CBS’ Madam Secretary and HBO Max’s Love Life; he also played Agent Cleary in the recent massive box-office hit Spider-Man: No Way Home. It’s this climb up the proverbial ladder of success that Moayed identified with most when he read the part of Todd Spodek — Anna Delvey’s defense attorney — in Shonda Rhimes’ script for the pilot episode of Inventing Anna.
“I had my own version of that as an Iranian immigrant,” Moayed says of Spodek’s speech in the first episode referring to his humble beginnings as a valet for rich people. “I had a very distinct understanding of those lines. It’s very honest to me, so I latched onto that aspect of him.”
Moayed also quickly realized that he needed to focus on the more humanistic side of Todd, who is a fictionalized version of the real-life defense attorney for Delvey, aka Anna Sorokin, who, posing as a German heiress, swindled hundreds of thousands of dollars out of New York City’s wealthy elite. After all, defending someone who is so obviously a criminal isn’t always a cakewalk.
“In October or November of 2019, I had a phone call with Betsy [Beers] and Shonda [Rhimes],” recalls Moayed. “I was super-duper nervous. I had notes prepared and questions, and Shonda just led the conversation. I liked that she kept on saying that Todd is a nice guy. I mean, you can have clients like this and still be a nice guy.”
Here, Shondaland talks with Moayed about murky ethics and hustling in NYC, the parallels between Succession and Inventing Anna, and that staggering final episode of Anna where his character goes tête-à-tête with Julia Garner’s Anna.
VALENTINA VALENTINI: When you read that first script, what were your initial thoughts about all of it?
ARIAN MOAYED: My initial thought was: “I have to Google Anna Delvey.” And then, all of a sudden, I’m so deep into Anna Delvey’s courtroom looks on Instagram, and I’m like, “I am in. Whatever is happening right now, I’m in.”
VV: As an immigrant who fled the Iranian revolution to come to America, you seem like you might have a unique perspective on the Anna Delvey story.
AM: You’re right; I think I do. Though “fleeing” is such a weird term because we got on an airplane and left. But yes, we left everything. And we are the only family on my mom or dad’s side that’s in the United States; everyone else is in Iran. We were not part of the group of people that left before the revolution. I guess it’s kind of a long story …
VV: I’d love to hear it if you’re willing to tell it.
AM: Sure. My mom got married in Tehran at a very young age. It was an arranged marriage, and by the time she was 18, she had three kids. Then 17 years go by, and she has me. Out of that came this amazing journey of my two brothers and sister that are much older than I am, growing up in Iran. My oldest brother came to the United States at age 16 to study at university, but when the revolution hit in 1979, they told him he wasn’t to come back to Iran. My other brother fought in the Iran-Iraq war for two and a half years. My cousin died in that war; I was born in the midst of that war. It sounds shocking to talk about now, even for me. So, then we came to the United States when I was 5 to Chicago, and neither of my parents spoke English very well. It was a whole reframing of life. It’s funny — I’m 41 now, and my mom came at this age to a new language, new culture, new grocery store, no friends. I can’t imagine that right now. So, I completely understand, both for Todd and Anna, that there is an immigrant hunger that’s out there, for sure. And for Todd specifically, and with Shonda’s portrayal of him, he’s fighting his own battles and trying to prove himself to the world.
VV: Were you able and did you want to reach out to Todd Spodek?
AM: I didn’t. I was so deep in text and trying to make sure I got all of Shonda’s words exactly as they were written. Oddly, I had done this production with Waterwell called The Courtroom. It was a reenactment of this one woman’s deportation case, and I read a bunch of transcripts from this case. One way I researched playing Todd was to read the transcripts of Anna’s trial, and that was helpful for me. So, I felt like I knew Todd through the energy of his words on those transcripts from the court. And then he showed up on set one day.
VV: Way to bury the lead!
AM: Yeah, he just showed up. I want to say it was in March of 2020. We were filming when I — Todd — interrogated Katie Lowes’ character, Rachel. It was a big day for me. I’m sure that they said he was coming. I wasn’t surprised by it, but I’m sure I was nervous that day. He was super-sweet, and he watched this big scene. It was tough.
VV: That must have compounded the intricacies of playing a real-life person who is still, in theory, dealing with matters that you are portraying on-screen.
AM: There is a moment where you have to separate yourself from thinking that. In the juxtaposition of what’s real and not real, it’s the hunger that these characters have that needs to come off as real. I turned off the idea that it was a real person. It only got real when I was doing the opening and closing monologues of the ninth episode, which are actually verbatim from the [Anna Sorokin] case court transcripts. But also, Shonda is telling a very specific story, and so I can appreciate being inside that story as well. And the truest things in this story are so unbelievable. They’re so beyond. Like the Billy McFarland aspect — people forget how crazy nuts it all actually is.
VV: Of course, we all know that Anna Sorokin has been found guilty in a court of law, but do you personally think she is guilty? And what do you feel your character thinks?
AM: For me, stealing an airplane is a level of trickery and conning that is so unimaginable to me, and, yes, guilty. Yes, I think she’s guilty of things. I also think they overcharged her. At the end of the day, she did win four of the 12 counts, and I think that is really telling that she’s both not guilty and guilty. And as far as Todd goes, I think he really cares about her, but he also knows this is a trial that is a big deal. Like in the last episode, Todd doesn’t suffer fools. He isn’t someone who is just going to take it because someone says it, and that’s intriguing about Todd. There are things he understands about Anna to be, like, insane. And then there is part of him that sees how on point she can be, business-wise. An argument could be made, you know? She just created a pitch deck. You gave her the money; that’s your problem.
VV: You’re a New Yorker. You started a business and a family there, and you’ve done tons of theater. Have you ever come across people like Anna and her posse?
AM: It’s so different in the nonprofit world than the for-profit world — in the nonprofit world, you really know when no one has money [laughs]. There’s no hiding the fact that the nonprofit has zero dollars; it’s just so apparent. But in the for-profit world, you constantly have to put yourself out there as a special being, as there are so many entities trying to get a little amount of money. You do have to put yourself out there. New York is kind of how Neff says it is in the first episode — everyone here is on a hustle. Everyone in New York City is trying to get up a ladder.
VV: Now, this may be a stretch, but your role as Stewy on Succession, it could be seen as kind of a parallel world to what is happening in Inventing Anna.
AM: Meaning it’s like the billionaires being pitched? Yeah, I can see that.
VV: I just thought, like, if you made a Venn diagram of those two shows together, Todd and Stewy are where it crosses over.
AM: Shonda? If you’re listening to this, let’s do this crossover [laughs]. I’m playing these characters in suits all of a sudden. Stewy is such a uniquely specific guy who is only after the final thing, which is conquering it all. He’s closer to that than Todd is. Todd just wants to be respected, because he has funds, but he just wants to not be thought of as a joke anymore. You know, what’s really funny is that in Succession, the vast majority of my character, outside of season three, I’m talking to guys. In Inventing Anna, all of my scenes are with women.
VV: I kid you not, that was literally my next question. I was going to point out how all the males in this show play a second chair of sorts to these very capable, very talented females, both the characters and the real people. What did you see as your job to support that environment?
AM: Just to be a human being, to respect everyone as an equal as best as you can with all of our perceived s--t behind us. For me, Shonda was the most important person. Her story was so well written, dialogue so delicious, our table reads were so fun. I’ll never forget reading the ninth episode right before the pandemic shut us down — and I always wanted to make sure I was observing that gloriousness. Most of that episode is just trial, and it was written to perfection. I don’t mean to keep kissing the feet of Shonda Rhimes, but it was written exactly how unbelievably awesome TV should be written. Julia and I also had these six-, seven-page scenes — and not just the two-handers in which we are screaming at each other, having a massive fight, but with numerous incidents in the trial that balanced the comedic with the dramatic tone, all while honoring a lot of the actual words from the transcripts. I have to say, it was a really exciting challenge. And I had the greatest sparring [partner] in Julia Garner. She is so spectacular and fun and hilarious and devastating in that last episode. And then I think about how we were filming that only days before the start of the pandemic — that’s a godsend to have gotten to do that.
Valentina Valentini is a London-based entertainment, travel, and food writer and also a Senior Contributor for Shondaland. Elsewhere she has written for Vanity Fair, Vulture, Variety, Thrillist, Heated, and The Washington Post. Her personal essays can be read in the Los Angeles Times, Longreads, and her tangents and general complaints can be seen on Twitter at @ByValentinaV.
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