My absolute favorite Alexander Siddig story - and oh boy I have a lot of favorites - is that one day he noticed everyone on the DS9 set was suddenly asking him these weird very carefully phrased gentle questions like hey buddy, how you doing? you feeling alright? Can we get you anything? you know you can always come to us for help if you need it and he was like wtf why is everyone being weird and it turned out that he had been showing up to set late and generally looking tired and the whole crew thought he had gotten into hard drugs but in reality what he was doing was staying up till 4 AM every night playing Ultima Online

@keanu-reeves IM GLAD YOU ASKED

when he gets goin he basically tells stories constantly but it is somewhat sobering because a solid percentage of them are just about casual racism he has experienced and often seems amazingly unbothered by

anyway let's see

- a fan approached him at a con and very very nervously thrust a magazine into his hands...with a photo of James Callis. He tried to explain to them repeatedly that he was not James Callis but they were so nervous they were basically not responsive so he finally signed the photo "Alexander Siddig is not James Callis" and gave it back and they thanked him and walked away

- He was sent to the UK from Sudan on a plane alone (running from political unrest in the country) when he was maybe 3 years old and the only thing his family sent with him was a suitcase full of mangoes because he loved them and they were hard to get in the UK (this would have been the late 60s)

- He desperately wanted to be an elf in Lord Of The Rings and they offered him a different part (I forget which one) and he was like ???? okay but I would like to be an elf and they told him flatly that they only wanted white people for the elves and he very rightly turned down all involvement in the production in response

- Not only did he spend all of the 90s playing video games he very much still plays them and now and, hilariously, is always the group healer which is something to unpack if you wanted to

- He took his kid to Disneyland and the person in the Mickey Mouse costume broke protocol to say "OH MY GOD IT'S DR BASHIR"

- The first review he ever got for being in a play spelled his name horribly wrong

- there are so so many more but after a year of hearing them it's all a soup in my head PEOPLE WHO'VE BEEN LISTENING TO HIM ON ZOOM AND REMEMBER PLEASE ADD YOUR FAVORITES

Sid was once in Ireland and met up with Colm for a drink at a pub. He went to order the drinks, and they wouldn't serve him. Literally said "we don't serve your kind here" just like OP said, he of course thought it was the casual racism he's endured his whole life. He goes back to the table and tells Colm "I think you better get the drinks," and what happened. Colm starts laughing. "They don't care what color you are, they just hate the British!" 🤣

My absolute favorite Alexander Siddig story - and oh boy I have a lot of favorites - is that one day he noticed everyone on the DS9 set was suddenly asking him these weird very carefully phrased gentle questions like hey buddy, how you doing? you feeling alright? Can we get you anything? you know you can always come to us for help if you need it and he was like wtf why is everyone being weird and it turned out that he had been showing up to set late and generally looking tired and the whole crew thought he had gotten into hard drugs but in reality what he was doing was staying up till 4 AM every night playing Ultima Online

Sid am I a joke to you

[ID: 8 Photos of Alexander Siddig, from various ages, including a few close ups on his face. End ID]

Thinking about "Inquisition", and how this:

[Image description: Text from a script that reads 'With that, Sisko turns and walks out. Bashir stares after him with a leaden feeling his stomach. After a beat, he turns and hammers a fist into the cell wall.]

turns into this:

[Image description: A gif of a clip from the show. It shows a containment cell on Deep Space Nine, the force field activated. Julian Bashir stands despondently in the cell, leaning against the back wall. He slides down the wall to sit on the ground and brings his hands to his head.]

and what that says about Bashir's response to the situation and his mindset and feeling of anger (or lack thereof) and how Alexander Siddig (and/or the episode's director) interpreted that.

I might try and put some of those thoughts into words later, but at this moment my brain is not cooperating.

Some gems from an old Sid fan club newsletter - Multi-species Medicine

y'all are so fucking valid