The Caliphate series is a Swedish eight-part drama about an impending Islamic State (ISIS) attack on Sweden. It was released on Netflix in March 2020.
Bozan was born in Turkey’s Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in 1989. He moved with his family to Sweden when he was three years old.
In the Swedish series, he plays an ISIS fighter named Husam, who lives with Pervin, played by Gizem Erdogan, and their newborn daughter Latifa in the city of Raqqa, Syria.
In an interview with Rudaw’s Diaspora show on Friday, Bozan said it was a physical and mental challenge to get into his role of an ISIS militant.
“It is difficult to play a role of an extremist character who has a lot of trauma. I had to lose 13 kilograms of weight and leave my beard to grow long. In terms of physical aspects, it was really difficult. As for the psychological aspect, it was difficult too because the character I played, the role was very different from my personality,” he explained.
He almost didn’t take the part. “I did not like to play the role of a terrorist because it was different from my personality. After I talked to the director, he was able to convince me to play the role,” he said.
Convinced to take the role, Bozan dove into research. “I read a lot about the personality of such characters. I have consulted many psychologists about why people join such groups. I read a lot about the people who joined the group and returned to Sweden, just to perform that character. Because many people in the world have joined the group in 2015, there were Kurds, Swedish people among them,” he explained.
The eight-part series was filmed in Sweden and Jordan. It received rave reviews and drew in highest viewing numbers in its first month on Sweden’s SVT television service. On the Netflix platform, it quickly became one of the most popular shows.
The drama focuses on Pervin, the wife of the ISIS militant played by Bozan, and her disillusionment with the Islamic State after their arrival in Raqqa while her husband assists in plotting an attack on Sweden. It has sparked debate in Sweden about the complicated issues around religious fundamentalism raised in the show.
