For Sam Asghari, life is golden.
He performs the “baddest man” in a brand new film with John Travolta, “The Gentleman Thief,” and he’s head-over-heels in love with girlfriend Brooke Irvine.
However he additionally is aware of that, to many individuals, he’ll eternally be generally known as “Mr. Britney Spears.”
Requested if he thinks there’ll ever come a time when individuals don’t ask him in regards to the troubled famous person — whom he dated for six years and was married to for practically two, till 2024 — he instructed Web page Six: “By no means going to occur.
“However am I totally able to reply these questions and am I totally prepared for it to not have an effect on me? Completely.”
In distinction to Asghari’s settled new life, this 12 months alone, Spears, 44, has been arrested for a DUI and gone to rehab.
Simply days in the past, the singer sparked security issues after standing and dancing by the sunroof of a Mercedes G-Wagon cruising down Los Angeles’ 101 Freeway. She later dismissed the backlash on Instagram, writing, “Nothing is what it appears.”
So what does Asghari make of this newest conduct from his ex-wife, who has so publicly struggled prior to now?
The Iranian-born actor pauses earlier than answering.
“I’ve been actually centered on what has been occurring in my nation,” he mentioned. “All my focus has gone in direction of that and the initiatives I’ve been doing. I don’t like to essentially take a look at leisure information and I don’t prefer to imagine what I see anyway.
Asghari not too long ago mentioned Spears is simply as oppressed as the ladies in Iran.
The 32-year-old first met Spears in October 2016 on the set of her “Slumber Celebration” music video. He performed her love curiosity, they usually quickly hit it off.
Asghari was by Spears’ facet as she battled to be launched from her strict 13-year conservatorship, they usually wed in June 2022 at a somewhat weird star-studded marriage ceremony with visitors together with Madonna and Drew Barrymore. Throughout these years, a number of sources instructed Web page Six that Asghari was a stable drive of assist for her.
Even now, Asghari — who, Web page Six beforehand reported, left the wedding with none spousal assist — makes it clear that he needs the very best for Spears.
“The previous is the previous, and we get to rejoice it, and we get to at all times mirror on it,” he mentioned. “You’ll be able to’t change the previous. The issues that occurred occurred. And like I mentioned, I’d by no means complain about one factor that modified my life for the higher or for the more serious.”
Within the years since their divorce, finalized in December 2024, Asghari has moved on. He has been with Irvine, 32, for practically two years and the pair stay collectively in Los Angeles, together with their canine Porcha.
“She’s wonderful,” he mentioned of the true property agent. “She’s tremendous supportive, and we’ve been making an attempt to benefit from the summer time and attempt to go on trip, and we’re making an attempt to determine with the schedule the place to go.”
Would possibly the 2 increase their household quickly?
“I’m centered on my profession now, however what I’ve realized is that if I’m going to create a future in Hollywood, I’m going to need to put myself in danger and never my household and the individuals which can be subsequent to me …” Asghari mentioned. “However, yeah, in some unspecified time in the future, who doesn’t wish to have a household? I imply, all people needs to have a household.”
A former health coach, Asghari has been working to construct up a Hollywood profession. Final 12 months, he appeared on the NBC hit “The Traitors.” And now he has a task in “The Gentleman Thief,” out July 31, enjoying Victor, a part of a group recruited by veteran con man Mason Goddard (Travolta) to steal a $100 million portray from a yacht.
“I’m the macho, the muscle of the operation,” Asghari mentioned with fun. “Everyone has a specialty within the group, and I’m the man that holds the massive weapons and goes on the massive mission.
“I’m actually the baddest man on this film.”
Asghari was introduced on to the venture by his outdated good friend, Randall Emmett, who produced the film, which additionally stars Rebecca de Mornay, Lukas Haas and DJ Khaled.
It’s a outstanding full-circle second for Asghari, who, as a child rising up in Tehran, watched Travolta’s movies to assist study English. (His favourite: “The Taking of Pelham 123,” which got here out in 2009, a few years after he moved to the US as a 12-year-old.)
“I by no means imagined that at some point I’d be sharing the display with him,” he mentioned of Travolta. “Coming from Iran as a 12-year-old boy, it’s already profitable the lottery — as a result of the possibilities of coming to America from a rustic like that, it’s virtually none.”
Now, he marveled, he’s “working with legends like Mel Gibson and John Travolta and John Cena and Jean Good and Don Cheadle, Morgan Freeman and all these people who I’d by no means had thought.
“I got here from a rustic that has gone by a lot politically … and there’s a whole lot of harmless individuals in Iran which have a whole lot of potential. And I at all times say if I used to be in Iran, I’d by no means have completed something higher.”
Since a younger Asghari joined his father, a tow-truck driver, in Los Angeles, he mentioned, “I’ve at all times been working. The second I got here to America, I used to be sweeping the ground of my cousin’s tow truck store after which as a mechanic.
“The explanation why I’m in leisure proper now could be as a result of my journey simply took me this fashion. Whether or not I used to be an athlete or in leisure or having a enterprise, I’d at all times be the identical particular person … it doesn’t change me, working with John Travolta or sweeping my cousin’s ground.”
Even having been round Spears for so long as he was, he mentioned, “I’m at all times stunned assembly individuals which were on this trade for a very long time, particularly icons. The extra profitable somebody that has been, the extra identified, the extra iconic, probably the most charismatic the particular person is normally the toughest working particular person and probably the most humble particular person.”
With Travolta, “We talked about cigars, we talked about Iran, we talked about vehicles, we talked about airplanes.”
And the way about Scientology, provided that Travolta has famously been a member of the faith for many years? Did Travolta attempt to recruit him?
“Completely not!” he mentioned. “I don’t even know what that’s. So no. No, by no means. He was an absolute skilled, simply an incredible particular person, an incredible dad, wonderful household man.
Up subsequent, Asghari has made a brief movie known as “The Good American,” which takes place in Iran and America, enjoying an Iranian refugee and ride-share driver residing in Los Angeles. It should enter the competition circuit this fall.
“As an artist, I really feel prefer it’s our duty is to not become involved politically, however to become involved emotionally and to get behind initiatives that actually imply one thing to you,” he mentioned. “This was a Hollywood manufacturing displaying what actually goes down in Iran and the way the immigrants react once they come to this nation.”
The conflicts tearing his homeland aside for the previous few months “haven’t made me really feel good in any respect,” he continues, “I imply, who likes to observe their nation taken hostage by their very own authorities and doing all these horrible issues and getting them concerned in a conflict that they will’t defend themselves” It doesn’t really feel good in any respect, however it offers me motivation to have the ability to proceed to have the ability to signify and to have the ability to do issues for my individuals.”
He sees himself, he mentioned, as a rose rising up by concrete.
“The concrete was the nation I got here from — and the rose is me rising in unknown circumstances.”
