To prepare for his new wine-centric movie, actor Mamoudou Athie spent considerable time learning from experts — and it wasn’t always pretty.
“I was definitely shocked by the way sommeliers sniff and taste the wine,” he tells The Post. “They might as well put their whole face in the glass and take as deep a breath as possible. I was like, ‘Is that necessary?’ I guess it is!”
In the new movie “Uncorked,” streaming Friday on Netflix, Athie plays Elijah, a young man with dreams of becoming a master sommelier. Unfortunately, that ambition is at odds with the plan of his father (played by Emmy-winner Courtney B. Vance) for Elijah to take over the family’s Memphis barbecue joint.
Prior to filming the movie, Athie, 31, liked wine, but never really knew what to order.
“The movie definitely opened my mind up,” he says, noting that fake vino was used on set.
“We wouldn’t have been able to finish the movie if I had tasted all those wines and drank them,” he cracks.
Athie, 31, was born in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, where his diplomat father worked in the country’s state department. Before Athie’s first birthday, his father was forced to seek political asylum and was able to bring the family to the United States.
“There was a lot of human trafficking going on, and he was speaking out against that,” says Athie. “And Mauritania — the government there — didn’t like that so much.”
Raised primarily in the Washington, DC suburb of New Carrollton, Md., Athie moved to New York on his own at the age of 17. Despite his father’s serious background, Athie says his dad was always supportive of his pursuit of an acting career.
That said, there was the time his dad called him up — in Flatbush, where Athie says he was paying $300 a month for a crummy room — with a suggestion.
“My dad kind of softballed this idea to me, like, ‘Hey, have you ever thought about taking up photography or something?’ ” says Athie. “He was trying to introduce the idea of a new career, I think, but keeping it in the creative field . . . I was like, ‘Dad, if you’re going to suggest something that’s going to make me a lot of money, I don’t think photography is No. 1 on the list.’ ”
“It was really sweet,” Athie adds. “I think he was discouraged by his family from doing anything in the arts, and he never wanted his kids to feel that way.”
It’s a good thing, since Athie’s career is flourishing. After breaking through in the Sundance smash “Patti Cake$” and appearing as Grandmaster Flash on Netflix’s “The Get Down,” he’ll next level-up to blockbusters as a lead in “Jurassic World: Dominion,” scheduled for release in the summer of 2021.
The coronavirus pandemic has put that movie’s production on hold for now, but perhaps Athie can wait out the time with a bottle of his favorite wine that he discovered while shooting “Uncorked” — a Margerum M5, from Santa Barbara, Calif.
“It has everything you want in a red wine. It’s just so smooth . . . Don’t get me started, man,” he says, laughing. “Don’t get me started on this wine!”