Join us for a special episode of The Pilot Podcast where we interview Mahdi Cocci, star of the BET+ series Tyler Perry's Bruh.
Join us for a special episode of The Pilot Podcast where we interview Mahdi Cocci, star of the BET+ series Tyler Perry's Bruh. Come for the inside look into his character Tom and his career spanning Navy service and acting, and stay for the inside info on Netflix’s Lovebirds and tips on how to learn new sports!
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BJ 0:09
Welcome to The Pilot Podcast! This week we have a special episode. Today we’re joined by Mahdi Cocci from the new series, Tyler Perry’s Bruh on BET Plus.
Mitu 0:20
Welcome! We’re so excited to have you join us today. Would you like to introduce yourself to our listeners?
Mahdi 0:25
Glad to be here BJ and Mitu. My name is Mahdi Cocci. I’m one of the leads on the show on BET+, Tyler Perry’s Bruh.
BJ 0:33
So how about we start out with you telling us a bit about filming Bruh and portraying the character of Dr. Tom?
Mahdi 0:39
I mean, it was really such a rewarding and complete experience. I didn’t know any of the other guys before we started filming but we met at the callback. Bruh is about a group of four friends. We’ve been like good friends since college and now we’re living our lives. And all these guys, we clicked and connected right away and that was such a beautiful thing because nobody brought their egos, nobody was trying to outshine or anything like that, it was all just an opportunity to work. Everyone came and believed in the process, tried our best to hit the ground running and as many people know, like Tyler Perry shoots in a fairly quick format, like quicker than a lot of other TV shows, so it just requires a lot of work. You’ve got to commit to whatever, it’s gonna be quite difficult.
BJ 1:24
Are there any aspects you enjoy about portraying your character?
Mahdi 1:28
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is a testament to just Tyler Perry and his vision. It’s hard to say that that man is anything short of a genius because his track record is proof. But then also, when you audition, you only read a few pages of a scene, you know, but then there’s 24 full episodes so getting the scripts pre-production and reading through them and just how… how deeply it resonated with me and how closely I connected to different parts of Tom like that that exists within me and you know, I had tears in my eyes at some point just going through that. I was really quite fascinated… like how does he know, you know, but we all kind of felt that same way. I talk to my castmates, their experience was the same. But yeah, I feel very closely related to, to this Tom part of myself.
BJ 2:15
Going off of working in a Tyler Perry production, there’s been a lot of talk on social media from actors of color and Black actors about struggles on set. So we’re interested in knowing your experience working with a lot of Black talent in front of and behind the camera.
Mahdi 2:30
It’s really a beautiful thing, because Tyler Perry, as most of us know, is somebody who marched to the beat of his own drum in this industry. And that’s not very easy to do in an industry where you know, everything is like nepotism and who you know, and all this kind of stuff, but he did it his own way and in a relatively short period of time, really took off and by his own way, that’s like catering to a predominantly Black audience and dealing with a predominantly Black cast and crew. Most of this started with plays in his film and television projects, just the fact that he proved that that’s possible when the industry was kind of in a way, steers you away from that cause it’s “Oh, no, there’s no money.” Obviously that’s, that’s incorrect. And what you’ll see is that everybody kind of rallies behind Tyler Perry and I was an officer in the Navy before I was an actor. In the Navy, the morale of the crew kind of goes with the captain. So the way that the captain runs his operation is sort of like how everybody will fall in line. In many ways you see with Tyler Perry, because everybody has this deep desire to do a good job. He’s giving us opportunities, and he’s empowering us to actually like make our own decisions within that. He’s not a micromanager so a large group of people of color actors, crew, executive level, and everything comes together to really create something and do our best. It’s a really inspiring thing. But I don’t care who you are, kind of regardless of race, to see somebody who was able to do that in a way that he has, it’s really impressive.
BJ 4:02
Wow, I feel empowered just hearing that. And we have looked at your resume and we saw this isn’t your first Tyler Perry production. You’ve also been on Sistas. What was that experience like? And what’s it been like just working with Tyler Perry throughout the years?
Mahdi 4:16
I mean, it was a great opportunity to get to do Sistas. I did a couple episodes of that. I was extremely excited to get that opportunity. And when I went, I didn’t expect that he was going to be there. He’s such an A-list celebrity, I’m thinking he probably farms it out to some assistant directors or something like that. So I show up on set and he’s there. He’s a very intimidating presence. He’s a super nice guy, but he’s 6’5", he’s this recognizable A-list, he’s got a really deep booming voice, so I just want to do a good job and I won’t want to mess up, right? Like that was kind of my mentality. He kind of walks through “Okay, here’s here’s where you’ll stand here. You’ll hear that Okay, ready? Okay, go!” So I was like, “Okay.” I had worked with Novi Brown in LA on a web series. She ended up being one of the leads on Sistas and she came to me ahead of time. She’s like, “Okay, here’s what you do. It’s going to be fast and you might have like, you know direction on the fly to move right or move left. Just pick right back up.” And she like gave me kind of the inside scoop and I was… that’s again, that’s kind of a testament to how his productions are. Everybody really is trying to see everybody else win. That first experience was valuable and rewarding. Then when I showed up for the call back and he was in the room for Bruh and he was like, “Oh, good to see you again.” I was like, “Whoa!”, You know? Because again, he meets so many people, so much stuff. The fact that even knew that I worked for was kind of, that’s kind of impressive too.
I grew up in Atlanta. And my friends tell me that sometimes I have very Georgia specific stories. I guess it was a very unique place to be young in the 2000s. One of the ones that my friends like is that for prom, instead of going to a party with friends, my friends and I got together and went to go see Madea Goes to Jail because we loved- at the Fox Theater. Because we loved Madea plays so much.
Oh, you got to see it at the Fox. That’s like…
Mitu 6:05
Yes!
Mahdi 6:06
That’s Atlanta history right there.
Mitu 6:07
Truly, although please don’t age me.
Mahdi 6:11
I mean the Fox is still around. I think they just recently did a play actually.
Mitu 6:16
Mmhmm.
Mahdi 6:16
Tyler Perry did a play there, in maybe like in the last year or so.
Mitu 6:19
I saw that too. Like the Madea retirement tour. I saw that at the Apollo last year, but there is such a magnetism like you’re describing to Tyler Perry when he’s on stage as Madea providing wisdom as Madea and obviously going off script and messing with the actors and getting them to cut up which is sometimes your favorite part and doesn’t have to do this, but he comes out at the end in regular clothes, like as Tyler Perry then shares even more wisdom with the crowd and you feel full walking out of one of those productions. Truly.
Mahdi 6:52
Right, right.
Mitu 6:53
And so I’m just curious about that magic around him. Is it something that you’re trying to learn from him? I feel like I would want to try to soak it up however I could.
Mahdi 7:01
A castmate of mine, Barry Brewer, who plays John on Bruh. He kind of summarized it best. He said, Tyler Perry followed his dreams, which enabled all of our dreams to come true. And that really is a thing. And his… the headquarters at the studios are called The Dream Building. And it’s so aptly named because you’re a part of something great. So you’re right. It’s very difficult to not feed off of that. And I tell people, this is the hardest I’ve ever worked, including the Navy, including undergrad, including high school, but it’s so rewarding. And also you see our director, producer, writer, our leader, he works even harder and he’s already super successful. So to follow his lead, it’s like yeah, we got to put that work in and that’s essentially the only way to get to a closer level to where he is, you know?
Mitu 7:23
So going back to Bruh, as a light spoiler for our listeners, Tom’s one-night-stand of nightmares is coming to a head and might be affecting his career. We see that his career is in jeopardy now. And so, as much as you’re comfortable sharing, what do you think is next for Tom?
Mahdi 8:00
It comes down to… what I value as Tom in this world, and it’s like I value my bruhs and that friendship is like everything to me. And also my profession as a physician is very valuable and important to me. You know, this experience, one-night-stand romance with a co-worker now throws my work into jeopardy. Now that I feel threatened, I’m like, ready to defend at all costs. And I do think that there’s a lot of relatability for many of us, right? Regardless of male, female, we can relate to kind of both sides of it because in this situation, Valerie’s the nurse coworker in this world, you know, you have the best to empathize with her and hopefully you also have the ability to empathize with Tom. So that’s kind of how we’ve all been there in life. We’ve all kind of been more into someone than they’ve been into us. And maybe something to them is not a big deal and to us it is or vice versa. And the fallout from that can be pretty great.
Mitu 9:18
And we’re seeing a little bit of that with Bill actually that push and pull of who wants who more. And then with John, we’re getting caught up in this mysterious cash. And with Mike, all of his relationship seems to be catching up with him a little bit. Do you feel comfortable sharing about any of their journeys as well?
Mahdi 9:35
I think probably what I appreciate the most about the show is that there are parts of all of them in all of us, and vice versa. I’ve got aspects of Tom obviously in my own personal life, but then I also have a lot that I can relate to John. Of the group of friends, he’s the one bruh who’s not as financially successful in life. He still lives with his mom and he’s trying to like figure it out and make it happen. And in many ways, I can very much relate to that, to be chasing the dream, and not with family yet, no wife, trying to figure it out. That, that aspect exists, you know, and then Mike is more so, he’s guarded a little bit. He’s flashy, and likes to rotate through numerous women. And you know, there’s that aspect that exists within me and many of us as well, but it’s not a good long term sustainable plan. And, you know, Mike, maybe you’ll kind of realize that as the season progresses, and you know, for Bill’s classic story of letting a good woman go. I’ve been there before, too. He’s in that position where he’s trying to get some reach back, like trying to maybe reach back and touch her and pull her back into the fold. And that’s comes with its own set of challenges. So I can personally relate to all of these stories. And I think that many people also can relate to at least one or not, if not all.
Mitu 10:55
It almost makes me laugh, hearing you talk about it because it’s so true that each of these characters is so relatable. And in my head, I’m cycling through people for each of them, which is what I felt like I was doing when I watched episodes of the show. And it comes back to what you were saying about the relatability of Tyler Perry’s writing. It is very much pulled from people’s lives.
Mahdi 11:15
Right, absolutely.
Mitu 11:16
And with that, the care that you use to speak about each of these characters, how much you care for and relate with Tom and with the rest of the bruhs. That love, it’s really evident. I personally love any portrayals of Black male friendship. There isn’t enough and it is so beautiful to see it here. Even when you all are fighting which there is some push-pull between you all. John’s a little mad at everyone right now and there is that but there’s still that love there because you wouldn’t be mad at your bruhs if you didn’t feel hurt by them.
Mahdi 11:51
Right.
Mitu 11:51
And so can you tell me one, what is that portrayal like getting to be in this bond of Black male friendship as a show and having that be central relationship? Really I would argue over their romantic relationships. And two, if there’s any of that chemistry off set? I was very surprised to hear that y’all met close before filming because it really seemed like you had already developed a bond.
Mahdi 12:16
And I appreciate you saying that. And I really do care deeply about this story that we’re all getting the opportunity to play in. I love these dudes, I really do. Like these really are my bruhs, like all these guys. And we, that’s again, a testament to Tyler Perry and his vision and his ability to cast because this bond is central to the story. Somehow, in his infinite wisdom, he could see that we were going to be able to connect on such a deep level. And for all of us, it’s greater than just the show. We really have formed a true lifelong friendship. And that’s so gratifying. Especially because we’re playing in a story that relates to that so we can like experience it. That’s something that’s important to all of us as people, all the actors. I’m glad that you can see the chemistry, because we feel it, absolutely. And that’s another thing, that’s why I’m like, I am excited. I haven’t seen the season either. I’m seeing the episodes as they’re coming out. So…
Mitu 13:15
Oh wow!
Mahdi 13:16
And I’m a fan. I’m a fan of these guys. I love these guys and girls that we all work together. So I enjoy watching them, and their stories unfold on screen as the story progresses. So did our real life chemistry progress. And that’s gonna be cool to watch.
Mitu 13:32
You spoke on this a little bit about your service in the Navy. And I’m curious about how that shaped what you bring to acting.
Mahdi 13:41
In many ways, it’s a big gear shift from life in the Navy to life as an artist, actor, performer. But obviously, I take many of my experiences and try my best to utilize them in this work. I think in many ways as a naval officer, I was guarded. And it’s not because the Navy instills this. This is like this is my own person. I’ve always tried to maintain a presentational side of myself. And in the Navy, fresh out of college, I was a division officer. So I was in charge of a group of 30 men and women, many of them older than I was. So I wanted to maintain and pretend I knew what I was doing. Even though I was brand new so I was green, I didn’t know anything. The unlearning of a lot of that has been what’s been important in the acting side of my career, because we don’t tune in to see somebody who’s got it all together. We tune in to watch film, spend our time watching film, TV shows because we want to see people open up and the unraveling that happens is so human. Learning to allow that as opposed to hide that mask that has been an important part of my growth as a person, as an actor. But looking at Tyler Perry and how he runs things so efficiently. He’s just such a solid leader and a lot of that comes from leadership training from the service and I feel like now have the ability to spot good leadership abilities, good leadership qualities, to have a leader who’s like reminds me of some of the strongest military leaders I work with. It’s a very comforting thing to just follow their orders and their direction and believe in the process.
BJ 15:13
Mitu and I recently watched The Lovebirds, I think about two weeks ago. It was a pleasant surprise to see you. And after we had reviewed Bruh, we didn’t know that was coming when you were portraying Keith. What was it like filming a movie?
Mahdi 15:24
That was a great, great experience. I had a fantastic time. For me, it was, it was just so rewarding. And I was working with a couple of comedic powerhouses. Really three because Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani are, you know, the leads and they’re phenomenal. And but our director, Mike Showalter’s super funny guy. His work like he’s, you know, he directed The Big Sick and he wrote and directed Wet Hot American Summer, classic which starred a lot of people. The three of them were kind of working as a team. I mean, the script was already there, but they would sort of like alter certain things and certain things on the spot. They would improvise or adlib or whatnot. I was kind of happy to just be able to essentially ride the coattails of some funny people, and just like, the hardest part was trying to keep a straight face. Because like sometimes they were just going off the cuff, like at the dinner table, there was a lot that was edited out. But when they were standing there when they first came in, they were just going off. So we’re all sitting at the table like listening, but trying not to just burst out and break the whole scene up but that was, that was a great, great time.
BJ 16:30
Awesome. That sounds like a lot of fun. I’m sure there’s a lot of laughter and withheld laughter that we-
Mahdi 16:35
Yeah, right [laughs]
BJ 16:37
didn’t get to see. Also curious, do you have any computer hacking skills like your character, Keith?
Mahdi 16:42
Did it sound like I did?
BJ 16:44
Maybe. You unlocked the phone.
Mahdi 16:47
The best compliment I got was, a buddy of mine, he’s actually like a tech guy. He’s like, “Oh, wow, like did you have to learn about like the brute force?” and he asked and I was like “Did it sound like I did?” But the cool thing was that you know, it gave me a little bit of time because that was sort of like a change that happened on the spot. That part of the dialogue, which was kind of more tech specific, was brought in after the script. That was brought in on set. I don’t know, a script supervisor or somebody came to me and kind of like, explained to me, and then they gave me a few minutes to sort of familiarize myself enough to sound like I knew what I was talking about. But it was, it was… that was a fun scene too to pretend to I know what I’m talking about.
BJ 17:27
You convinced us.
Mahdi 17:28
Awesome, awesome!
BJ 17:29
Testament to your acting skills.
Mahdi 17:31
There you go. I mean, cause honestly, I can barely figure out like Instagram, but you know, I’m getting better. Getting better.
Mitu 17:40
Outside of computer hacking, do you have any other hobbies or interests?
Mahdi 17:44
Well, I’d say probably my new favorite sport is skiing.
BJ 17:48
Oh, we tried that recently, for the first time in February.
Mahdi 17:52
Did you?
Mitu 17:52
BJ and I learned how to ski together and we took a class for kids seven and up and the teacher said we were two of the best students that they’ve had. And I would, I would like to add that there were no kids in the classes, it was adults.
Mahdi 18:05
There you go!
Mitu 18:06
Adults who we’re learning.
Mahdi 18:08
And I picked it up as an adult so I’m still getting better. You know, a good buddy of mine, Derek actually like is a phenomenal skier. Just recently, the most recent skiing I’ve done this with him. We went out to Breckenridge earlier this year.
Mitu 18:20
Oh, that’s nice.
Mahdi 18:21
We met my - My sister and her husband go out there with the kids. So we met them out there. It was like a last minute decision, we both booked a flight that day. It was super great powder and he’s such a good skier. I trust him. Like I said, like, you know, some that Navy stuff. When I trust the leader, I’ll kind of just follow orders. But he kind of showed me… I was scared of like, tree runs and things-
BJ 18:39
Yeah!
Mahdi 18:40
The trail was a little bit squirrly. But he showed me like, here’s how you can go about it. I kind of just followed his lead and had the best ski day of my life. And that’s cool about skiing. When you pick up a sport as an adult, you can continually have your best day. Your best days are ahead of you. Like, you try and go back to do some stuff you used to do in high school, your just like a shadow of your former self, you know.
Mitu 19:01
I love that perspective. I did not consider that. We can only improve.
Mahdi 19:06
You can only improve. You know, again like I don’t know if you did sports growing up or things like that, but a lot of times in our adulthood like our most important basketball games has already been played, our most important track meet has already been run. I haven’t picked up golf yet, but I understand why folks pick up golf like in adulthood because you can have your best days in your 60s. And that’s kind of a nice thing to be able to still be getting better at something. So skiing is like my main thing. The same guy I told you about Derek, he actually just taught me wakesurfing. So I’ve never done that. But like that’s a lot of fun too. You’re like, kind of surfing behind the wake of a boat, you know. So, I’m trying that now.
Mitu 19:42
Where are you located that you could ski and wakesurf?
Mahdi 19:46
That’s a great question. I live in Atlanta now and he does too. But Derek he grew up in a town called like Deep Creek Lake in Maryland. The house he grew up in, it’s like the base of the ski slope and it’s on a lake so-
BJ 19:58
Oh wow!
Mahdi 19:59
You get in a boat over the summer and you can do the boat activities and in the wintertime, you’re right there at the bottom of the ski slope of the chairlift.
BJ 20:08
Wow!
Mitu 20:09
Beautiful thing.
BJ 20:10
Yeah, the idea of that is amazing.
Mahdi 20:12
I know, right? I just recently checked out the house he grew up and I’m like, man, like nice, nice experience.
Mitu 20:20
Did you grow up in Minneapolis as well?
Mahdi 20:22
Yes, yes, so I went all the way through high school. I was in Minneapolis and then I left for undergrad and went to Pittsburgh for college.
Mitu 20:30
How does Atlanta compare to Minneapolis?
Mahdi 20:32
It’s interesting. It’s kind of like a, it’s a migration that a lot of Minnesotans do. Surprisingly enough. I had some really good friends who went to Atlanta for undergrad. I had never been and while we were in college, they were trying to convince me to come to Atlanta, like “Oh, it’s great down here. Come check it out.” But I never made it. So I never actually visited Atlanta until I moved there for acting. But there’s a lot of similarities I guess in the way, like they’re kind of like big cities, but not to the scale of New York, LA, Chicago big but there’s still like, it’s like a booming metropolis with a lot of growth and industry happening there. It’s the South. So there’s some differences, obviously, but it’s still like the migration for a better life. A lot of Black people who are trying to improve their life circumstances from the Midwest, like from Minnesota, you know, trying to make that Atlanta move, you know, to make their dreams come true.
BJ 21:29
Yeah, definitely. So I’m from North Carolina, and I always thought of Atlanta as the like the big city you go to.
Mahdi 21:34
It’s so funny. Everyone I grew up with has been telling me “Atlanta is full.”
And you’re from there, yeah. So you know that especially with film and TV industry, it’s just grown tremendously in last, what, three years? Every day, there’s like a boatload of people from New York and LA that are moving to Atlanta to really start to make some career progress.
Mitu 21:56
Speaking of moving to Atlanta to pursue your career, do you have any advice for our listeners who are interested in entering this field?
Mahdi 22:03
Obviously, everybody’s experience is going to be different. There’s not a surefire way to navigate exactly. But I was lucky enough to come across somebody who was a good friend and a mentor to me in the game. And he had just… his name is Jimmy Gonzalez, phenomenal actor, and he moved to LA when I still live there. I listened to him intently when he’s telling me about all these auditions, like wow. Whatever you practice, you can get good at and Atlanta just provided me the opportunity to audition a lot. As I was doing it often, I started to feel the support of that practice. And I was actually improving at it to the point where eventually, some of your auditions you actually book a job and then it kind of grows from there. In LA, my experience is different. It was slower. I mean, I was auditioning once every two months. Using the gym analogy, if I said build a physique and you can go to the gym every two months. It’s almost like why even go. You’re not kind of doing anything. When I say you can go at least three times a week, you can start to work with that. Atlanta provided me the opportunity to really improve my auditioning. And that is what is required to actually get hired to get on set. So, yeah, for young actors, I think that there are tremendous opportunities there for unknowns. You know, when I moved to Atlanta, I’d never… I didn’t have any professional credits. So when you’re an unknown, you don’t even get invited to audition for a lot of things. So that was the biggest benefit.
Mitu 23:29
That is really helpful advice for I think, any career that people want to pursue. So thank you for that motivation. Do you have any upcoming projects that you can share with our listeners to give them, you know, an opportunity to check you out in more things?
Mahdi 23:42
Sure. Well, at this point, you know, just Tyler Perry’s Bruh that’s available on BET Plus. There’s 24 episodes that comes out every Thursday. So you get a new episode every week and if you haven’t checked out The Lovebirds on Netflix yet, it’s a fun ride. It’s an hour and a half of enjoyment and yeah, I guess we’ll see what the future brings. You know, God willing, we’ll have season two of the show and all that. I’d love to come back and play some more with my bruhs. And then we got, once the industry reinstates, we’ll see what’s on the horizon, you know, because right now there’s not even productions because everything’s halted. There’s not even auditions happening. I’m excited to kind of get back to work on that as well.
Mitu 24:22
And BJ and I would also strongly recommend The Lovebirds to anyone. That’s such a good point that it’s so fun, but also movies sometimes go a little too long. And it is that perfect 90 minute length of entertainment.
Mahdi 24:35
Pretty fast pace, 86-minute ride.
Mitu 24:39
True. It’s not like… what was that Martin Scorsese movie?
Mahdi 24:42
Oh, The Irishman.
Mitu 24:42
The Irishman! That was like three hours -
Mahdi 24:44
Three and a half hours.
Mitu 24:46
Yeah. And where can our listeners find you on social media?
Mahdi 24:49
Instagram’s the easiest place. @mahdicocci Just spelled like my name, M-A-H-D-I C-O-C-C-I and I’ll keep some updates on there. Actually, I’m still learning it but I started making some posts and things.
BJ 25:04
So Mahdi, we wanted to thank you again for joining us for this awesome interview. We learned a lot, our listeners will definitely learn a lot, and our fingers are crossed for season two of Bruh.
Mahdi 25:14
Thank you so much, BJ and Mitu. You guys been fantastic and you know, thanks for letting me rap for a little bit.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai