Barkhad Abdi is heading to the beach.
The “Captain Phillips” star will guest star on an episode of CBS’s “Hawaii 5-0” airing in the new year, a show representative told TheWrap.
Abdi will play a Congolese warlord, one of the world’s most wanted men. Believed to have been killed in a 2011 bombing by the Zaire Air Force, the criminal is actually alive and living the life of a local cab driver in Hawaii.
“He plays basically Kony, that African warlord who was in the news a few years ago,” executive producer Peter Lenkov told EW, which broke the casting news.
“And our guys end up confronting him,” the producer continues. “It’s a big, big episode. We were so lucky to get him, and we wrote it with him in mind. We were able to get him to the island and that was a big coup for us.”
The role represents the Oscar-nominated actor’s first for television. In addition to “Captain Phillips,” he currently has two films in the pipeline: Gavin Hood‘s thriller “Eye in the Sky” starring Aaron Paul and Phil Volken’s crime drama “Extortion.”
SMS Talent represents Abdi.
