The Man Who Lived in the Airport
About this episode
This episode explores the incredible story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, who lived in Charles de Gaulle Airport for 18 years and inspired the film 'The Terminal'.
The inspiration for Steven Spielberg movie ‘The Terminal’, Iranian refugee Mehran Karimi Nasseri, began his incredible 18-year stint inside Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport on 26th August 1988. With hopes of flying to Britain, he had found himself trapped in a bureaucratic no-man’s-land after travelling without documents. Answering to ‘Sir Alfred’, he began to carve out a new personality for himself, living on a red bench surrounded by luggage, airport shops and the relentless rhythms of international travel. He washed in the terminal toilets, ate regularly at McDonald’s using vouchers given to him by airline staff, wore donated clothes and spent hours writing. He became perhaps the world’s most famous homeless man. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain how Nasseri eventually came to leave - and then return - to his airport home; uncover how his Hollywood money prevented him from accessing support services; and reveal the story of a Turkish citizen who, incredibly, appears to have beaten Sir Alfred’s record for airport residency… Further Reading: • ‘’The Terminal Man’ lived in a Paris airport for 18 years. I’ll never forget the weeks I spent with him…
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