Episode 9 with Mohammed Kamel - Do looks really shape your career?

Jessica Kingsley sits down to have a deep chat with actor Mohammed Kamel and they soon realise they have a lot more in common than just their noses… 

Mohammed reveals that his look haven't held him back; in fact it’s helped him get more castings and land great roles. But why are actors of colour, particularly those of Arabic descent, still so often boxed into stereotypes? As Villains. Terrorists. “The other.” Why can’t they be cast as the hero, the love interest or the comic lead?

 They reflect on a time when audiences believed in on-screen pairings like Omar Sharif and Barbra Streisand — complex, charismatic, funny and simply great actors. In a world that calls itself “progressive,” have we actually gone backwards? 

Jessica then puts Mo on the spot with The Big Question… and his answer might surprise you. 

🎧 Tune in now to hear the full conversation. 

 About the guest: Mohammed Kamel is best known for his roles in The Crown, Indiana Jones, and Liaison. A former English teacher, his journey into acting began after writing, producing, and directing his short film Honey. His debut book — charting his path from classroom to screen — is set for release soon, alongside a major upcoming project for Amazon Prime Video.

For more news on The Big Question and to learn more about it's guests head to 

@thebigqpod

Follow Jessica Kingsley actress, content creator & influencer @mymagicalquests for her own personal quests and life in London.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hi, you're listening to the big question by Jessica Kingsley. That's me, and I'm going to be presenting my journey of self-discovery to find out if by altering my nose will I actually alter or change my life? But I'm also going to be looking at the broader picture. I want us to delve into society's obsession with beauty standards. Society's obsession on the street, on our TVs, on our screens, and the pressure we put on ourselves. In a world, especially a Western world, why do we boast about how diversified we are when it comes to looks? When actually we're no more further than we ever were, and there's even greater pressure than ever to conform to trends and perfect beauty standards. I believe that my big nose is holding me back from my big dream of becoming a TV and screen actress. I want to find out if talking to other people about their looks and about the industry will actually help me to decide whether or not I should have a nose job. And today I'm going to be joined with an actor, Mohammed Kamel, and I'm really looking forward to talking to him, but I'm not going to tell you exactly what we're going to be talking about. But this is the first episode that I've made since the podcast had been released. And it's been great. I've had so much engagement with people, more than I thought. I'm not famous, I might be an influencer creator, but I'm not massive. And I've been really, really chuffed with the downloads. But more than that, more than statistics, because stats aren't everything. It's the dialogue, it's creating with people. The fact that it's resonating with people, it's helping people. I've had a lot of people reach out and say thank you for sharing. It's really helped them come to terms with their self-esteem issues or parts of their life they've been wanting to talk about but didn't think they should share. And it's been opening doors in ways that I didn't expect. No, Hollywood is not knocking yet and asking me to be the new barbestrizer, unfortunately. No, it's opening doors for other people to talk about their experience in the acting industry. And I think what I'm learning is I'm actually not that unusual to the industry. Maybe I'd like to think I am, but I don't think my experience is that different. And that's what we're here to talk about today. So I'm going to be talking to Mohammed about his career and his thoughts on casting and representation and just the broader picture of it, really. As I keep saying to people, this isn't just a podcast about an O's job journey. This is a podcast about how we look at people in society, how we look at ourselves in society and how we explore society standards to be this perfect self that is not good enough. And it's about exploring how we feel in that industry, especially when you are perhaps an actor or somebody who has to present themselves on screen. So with that, I am about to open the door to Mohammed. Um, we're gonna hear all about his experience. So thank you for joining me. Welcome, Mohammed! So good to meet you.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Thank you for having me on. Yeah, yeah. These are for you, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Look at this. The man comes with the milk tray. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

That's all because the lady loves milk trays.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

And I am gonna eat these and enjoy. Not for you, Shadow. No, thank you. That's so kind of you.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Thank you. Well, Shadow is joining us on the couch today because I did warn you that if you started stroking her, that's it. Hello, Shadow. She's gonna make herself comfortable now. So, do you like to be called Mohammed or Mo? Do you want to make that both?

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yeah, both. I like my my very close friends call me Mo.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

No.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Uh so very soon.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Okay, so it will be Mohammed for now.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

I think we'll start with Mohammed and then by the end, by the time we get further in, it'll be Mo.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

I like that. Okay, yeah. So, Mohammed, please tell our listeners and those who are watching on YouTube about yourself. All about you can start wherever you like.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah, so I am an actor and a filmmaker uh and an English teacher. All of the above. I'm uh a linguist, a polyglot, I do lots of things. I used to play football, I used to do kickboxing, and uh I have a very high degree of interest in Chinese culture, so Chinese kung fu. So I participate in all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_04 5:29

Um as a performer.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

As a performer, yeah. And it's all part of I got into the kung fu first, and then while I was studying kung fu, uh several kung fu teachers told me you have to participate in the whole culture, so lion dance being part of it, uh being a very important part of it. And uh yeah, but I I've I've been an actor now for nearly 10 years, and yeah, that's where that's where we are.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

So, how did you get into the acting? What what came first? The kung fu, the performance, what what sparked the interest for the actor?

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Okay, that's a great question. It's like what came first. Yeah, the chicken or the egg. It's interesting because when I was growing up, as probably a good proportion of men who are of my generation or my age, we watched Bruce Lee movies, right? Jackie Chan movies and that kind of thing. And I had sort of two sides to my movie-loving magic, so to speak. The one side of me was really into Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies, and I love that physical expression on screen. It's probably another reason why I love musicals because musicals have dance numbers, and a dance number is similar to a kung fu fight on screen, for example, because you know it's got beats, it's got rhythm. Have you have you not noticed that?

SPEAKER_01 6:51

I have noticed that. Um I actually noticed at Wimbledon Theatre they've got the karate kid the musical. Yeah, and uh, and my son said, How's that gonna work? And I said, Exactly that, yeah, because kung fu martial arts is a dance, essentially. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

A fight scene, yeah, exactly. Any kind of fight choreography on screen has a rhythm, has it has a beat to it.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

So and with your partner, exactly sparring to a rhythm, otherwise you'll really hurt them.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah, you have to be in sync, right? So, and for example, the way Jackie Chan does it, it's unbelievable, or did it in the 80s and 90s, you know, when we were growing up and watching him, he's doing it not just with one partner. Jackie Chan might have three or four or five guys at the same time, or ten, and he's going from that guy to that guy, he's defending this punch or defending that kick, and you know, he's using furniture. So I had the one side of my brain that really loved Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies, and then I had the other side of my brain that really loved sort of 70s American cinema, the classics like The Godfather, The Exorcist, the French Connection. Um flua with a cuckoo's nest. That that kind of that kind of 70s yeah. Sorry, what were you?

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Well, did you do drama as a child at school or college?

SPEAKER_00 8:06

No, no, that's really that's the strange thing. I never did any of that. I at school I was more of a sporty kind of child, so I was in the school football team, in the school cricket team, yeah, school swimming team, table tennis. I was a real I used to drive my parents crazy because depending on what was on TV, that would be the sport I'd want to do.

SPEAKER_04 8:28

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

So during the football season, I tell my parents, I want to go and buy some football boots and a football kit, and then the football season would finish, and I'd be like, I want I need a cricket bat. I want to be Tim Henman. Yeah, and now I need now Wimbledon's on. So I need to buy a tennis racket, and and it would drive, and they were like, look, just pick one sport and stick to it. And so yeah, I I I was quite sporty when I was growing up. I didn't do any drama, but what was happening was I was very much a TV addict, especially past my bedtime at school. So once you go past your bedtime, that's when the good films are on. Yeah, and the good acting and serious films, good acting, and in those days we only had four or five channels, and you couldn't watch on demand. Yeah, that's right. You didn't have like if you missed it, you missed it. Yeah, we didn't have like, yeah, exactly. Um, so past the watershed is when the good films came on, like The Godfather. The Godfather would come on late at night, or a Bruce Lee movie, or Jackie Chan movie would come on late at night, usually on BBC Two or Channel 4, because they're the ones, they're the channels that used to show the really good stuff. And I'd just be up at night watching. And my dad was also a late-night owl. I think that's where I got it from. And he would say to me, Look, your mum is gonna get us in trouble if she knows I'm late and stay up late. So, in order to make this worthwhile, I don't just want you to watch, to like just like stare at the screen and watch The Godfather. I want you to think about what is happening in the film, like in terms of the story, the character. He got me actually to think about it. He would say, Look, get a notepad, get a pen. As you're watching the movie, make some notes.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

And I love the way it's like an academic experience, but at the same time, what a bonding experience with your dad.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Fantastic, fantastic. Did you have a good relationship? Oh, we had a great relationship, and he's my like my number one hero of all time. So, yeah, he he that experience of just staying up with him and watching movies and writing down. Well, the thing is, when he when he he was a journalist in Egypt when he was growing up, before he came to the England to England, and he actually wrote a couple of scripts for some black and white movies over there. So he had some involvement in the movie business, and understanding, an understanding of storytelling.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Yeah, it's always about the stories.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

It's about storytelling. And this is the other thing because you asked me about how I became an actor. That storyteller was always inside me, and I always felt I had stories to tell.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

And your dad told stories, it was passed down. It's it's very common, these genes, these hereditary traits that our parents give us that we might not realize when we're a child, but then as we grow up, we go, Well, that's actually why I'm into that.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah, that's right, yeah. And um yeah, so I I that was one side of me, the kind of 70s American movies, the classics, The Godfather, uh, One Fruit of the Cuckoo's Nest, and so on. And then the other side of me was the Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies, which I loved. And then that side of me kind of took over. So the first thing I did was instead of becoming an actor or getting into filmmaking, I just got into martial arts. So I started doing studying Chinese kung fu. I traveled, I went to the Far East, I went to Malaysia, I went to Hong Kong, places like that, went to southern China and trained in in kung fu and trained in line dance and stuff like this. I kind of did that first.

SPEAKER_04 11:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

And while I was abroad, I wanted to make some money. So as a native English speaker, you didn't need any qualifications. Oh, you're from England, come and teach this English class. Yeah, so I got into English teaching purely by accident because I happened to be in another country thinking, oh, I need I need to earn money, money while I'm here. So I just taught English.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Is it still that simple? Because I had friends who did TEFL teaching English as a foreign language, and they would travel around the world and just yeah, your English, come and teach. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if it's that simple.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

I don't think it's that simple anymore now because things I mean I'm talking like 20 years ago, but I I or longer perhaps. But I I uh when I got back to England, I did my TEFL qualification and then um did English teaching more seriously here once I was back in England, and then uh on a night out with a friend of mine, very, very randomly, we bumped into an actor who I'm very close friends with now called Hainsley. Hainsley knowledge Bennett. We just bumped into him randomly at this networking event, yeah, which me and my friend were not invited to. So this is something that I talk about in in my book, which is coming out soon.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Gate crashing.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

My book will be out soon. Oh, we're gonna talk about your book. Yeah, we will. I won't jump the gun. Yeah, um what me and my friend used to do is we used to uh see if we could get into places that we're not supposed to.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Ah, you know what that's called? Yeah, chutzpah.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Have you heard? Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

That's a great Yiddish word. Yeah, that's right. And I always try and sum it up to people, and I said it's exactly that. Yeah, like if you see an opportunity, even if you're not invited, you take it. That's right. I love that. Good chutzpah.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Yeah, I love that word, yeah. I'm familiar with it, chutzpah. So we would just use our chutzpah, but we actually had a nickname for it. We used to call it Eddie Murphying. Oh, Eddie Murphying our way in.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Only because he had the gift of the gab.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

He had the gift of the gab, and you've seen Beverly Hills Cup, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Because most of the Beverly Hills Cup movie is just Eddie Murphy trying using his chutzpah to get into different venues, and you know, every nearly every scene in Beverly Hills Cup or Hollywood Hills Cup 2 is Eddie Murphy, you know, entering some kind of exclusive Harrow like the Harrow Club, for example, or or you know, an exclusive golfing venue or an exclusive hotel, and then suddenly transforming into a different character, making up some story to enable him to get in with like a different social class of people.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

I like that. I'm gonna remember that. Eddie Murphying.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Eddie Murphying. So me and my friend would say, shall we Eddie Murphy our way into this place? And it was in Mayfair, this kind of private members' club in Mayfair, and we knew that there was a networking event taking place, but we weren't invited. But we somehow went up to the guy at the door, charmed our way in somehow. Maybe it's not that difficult to believe. I'm quite charmed.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Yeah, because I didn't say I wasn't difficult to believe it. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. No, it's good, it's the confidence as well to believe in yourself.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Yeah, it's having that, you know, uh cajones, as they say. And then uh we got into this networking venue, and in there we met Hainsley. Yeah, and Hainsley was kind of I think he was there with his girlfriend at the time or something, and she was doing most of the networking, and Hainsley just looked really bored, and he was sitting in the corner, and I said to my friend, let's go and speak to that guy, because he looks like he's he could do with some company, and we kind of sat down and we just hit it off as friends immediately. And he was an actor, and what I loved about meeting him is he had this humility because before we met him, at the very same uh networking event, we had met other people there who were really braggadocio, you know, oh I'm an actor, or I'm an actress, and and really giving at the large, when actually you can tell they should have just been honest and said, Well, I'm trying to make it, yeah, you know, and there's no shame in saying that because we were all trying to make it, you know. Whereas when I spoke to Hainsley, he immediately struck me with this different energy because the first thing when someone says you're an actor, and I've experienced this now, the first thing people say is, Oh, what have you been in? Yeah, and I'm sure you get the same.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Yeah, yeah, it's you feel you have to prove it unless you're you know, obviously very, very well known.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Yeah, that's right, yeah, unless you're Tom Cruise, and if people can immediately recognize you, you're like, Oh, do I have to now list my credits and stuff? So unfortunately, I was one of those people. So when I met Haynesley, he said, I'm an actor, and I was like, Oh, what have you been in? And then I said to him, I know you've heard that question a lot, and he said, I don't mind. And he said, I've been in a McDonald's commercial. That's the first thing he said, and I was like, A McDonald's commercial like I didn't know. This is how ignorant I was. I didn't know that the McDonald's commercials and TV had actors in them. I thought they were real McDonald's with real McDonald's.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Well, then you say that. I hope they have actors in because there's so much street casting putting actors out of work. So I hope they do have actors in, but yeah, and that's great.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

That's right. So at that stage, when I had McHane, this is how ignorant I was of the industry. I didn't know that the commercials on TV for Tesco's or McDonald's or any other place had actual actors in them. I thought they were real staff members. So that's how ignorant I was, and then I was like, Oh, you've been in a McDonald's commercial, and that's what I said to him. I said, I didn't know, I thought they were real McDonald's, and he was like, he started laughing. And he goes, Oh, you're a funny guy, and we just got on. Nice, you know, we had the same taste in movies as we became friends. So that night we exchanged numbers, and we met each other often, you know, going out to get burgers or kebabs or you know, the kind of thing that men do. Um, we had the same taste in in you know, in women, you know. So, for example, if we were sitting at a restaurant and a beautiful Brazilian woman would walk by, for example, we'd be like, we'd both sort of stop mid-conversation and be like staring, and he'd be like, Oh, you've got the same taste, and we'd be like, Yeah, we'd like high-five each other. And then Eddie Murphy, your way into other places, so yeah, we just hit it off, and then he noticed that during our conversations, all I did was quote movie lines and do accents, like you know, I copy actors' accents, and I can remember I can remember lines of dialogue from movies and things like that. And he was like, What you should be you should be an actor.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

So even at that point, you hadn't sort of considered it.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

No, I hadn't considered it at all. I didn't think it was for me, for us, you know, growing up, you know, being from an ethnic background and being from a very poor area of London. Yeah, but it turns out that Haynesley was also from North West London, yeah, from the same social background, ethnic background, being an actor of colour. And he said, Listen, if I can do it, you can do it. And he goes, You just have to, you know, throw your hat in the ring, yeah, you know, dip your toe in the water, so to speak. And I was like, Okay, so it's through really his sort of encouragement.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

He said it's already inside you. He said it just you just need to.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

I mean, I can tell just from talking to you and having met you before, it you you do have it inside you. You have a spark and you you want to tell stories and you have an energy, and I think that is what makes an actor. Yeah, and I always say to people when I'm acting, whether it's just at a party with 30 children, if I can engage them into my story, I'm acting.

SPEAKER_04 19:22

That's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

And whether so whether it's 30 children at a party or 3,000 in the West End or on TV, you're telling a story. That's right. And whether it's a character, whatever it is you're building, if you've got it in you, which you sound like you had it in you from childhood because you were fascinated in it. And yeah, it just sounded like you needed the right person to say, yeah, that is interesting.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Well, thank you for those kind words. The same about you. I remember the first time we met, I could tell immediately um there was you had that spark and that charisma inside you as well. Um it's immediately obvious. It's now proving it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 20:01

It's now proving it to the world that we can do it.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

That's right, yeah, we can do it.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

So Ainsley.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Um Hainsley, Hainsley, sorry, Hainsley.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Do we get his full name? Are we allowed to do that?

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Hainsley Lloyd Bennett, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Hainsley Lloyd Bennett, yeah. I'll look him up. I feel like I know that name. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

He's well, he's on my Instagram, perhaps you saw him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Cool. Um, so Hainsley got you thinking about it, and then what happened?

SPEAKER_00 20:26

And then I applied, so I couldn't do an undergraduate, I couldn't do one of those three-year drama courses because I'm already a grown man with a with a career as an English teacher.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

And it's so expensive, yeah, and they're so expensive.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

So I couldn't sort of just leave my job and leave my responsibilities, you know, mortgage and all that kind of stuff, and then just go and do three years. So what I did was I found a course at ArtsEd in Chiswick. Arts Ed's a great place, it's a lovely place, and you could do that course, so you could do your normal nine to five job during the day, and then you had to commit to three evenings a week for an entire academic year. And I did that, and I saw it out to the end. A lot of people dropped out because let's say this is not to be unkind, by the way, because it's a fantastic course, but it's not their main priority because their undergraduate courses are their main priorities, so not many people made it to the end, but I was one of them, only because I wanted to prove to myself I can I can make it to the end, and then I thought you were gonna say because a friend of mine went to a famous French performing arts school called Le Coq, and their their course is three years long, and they start with let's say a hundred in the first year, and then they cut in the second year, they kick 50 out.

SPEAKER_04 21:43

Oh right.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

In the second year they have 50, then in the third year they kick they left with 20 or 25. And I just think that's awful. You know, you you're putting a hot on soul into a course the whole time, knowing, feeling like you're being judged that you might be kicked off the course. But they do it on purpose because they say it's something to do with how the industry is. I'm like, wow, yeah, you're gonna learn that in the real world. You really need to learn that.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

That is very harsh.

SPEAKER_04 22:10

Yeah, that is very harsh.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

But yeah, so you stuck it out.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

I I stuck it out, and towards the end, just like in the last month or so of that course, I joined a website that's now called Mandy. Yes. But in those days it was called Casting Core Pro. Yeah. And uh when I joined that, I got a part in a feature film playing a French Moroccan uh restaurant owner. And I I got the part in that and I was like, oh wow. And unfortunately that film never got released, so it was shot, but it never got a release. But I shot it with guys that you know sort of when I googled them, I was like, oh wow, these people have been in, you know, have been in stuff. You know, I'm talking like ITV, you know, BBC Two TV shows, and I was like, okay, this is great, this is great. And um, I got a couple of parts in Shakespeare plays off West End, you know, like pub theatres. Yeah. So things things were kind of like moving along even before I graduate, but I didn't have an agent yet. And then what I did was in one of those pub theatres, I invited some agents down.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Which, if any young actors are listening, or not young actors, any actors who haven't got an agent, it is really great. If you haven't got a show reel, um and you you're not in something big, if whatever you're in, just invite agents down.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

That's great, yeah. I I will second that. So this is something that I've written about in my book as well, which is if you don't have a show reel, yes, you get together with a group of friends, you put on a theatre show, you can hire out a pub. You can hire out a pub theater. Pub theaters have like 30 or 40 seats, you hire it out for a week, put on the show five nights during that week, and invite agents, email uh a thousand agents and invite them down to see your show. Yeah, I mean we can talk about that in more detail. But yeah, that's that's that's what I did, and then through that I got my first agent. Uh I won't mention any names, I got my first.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Although I heard we had an agent in common, yeah. Perhaps, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

I got my first agent, and things didn't quite work out.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

So a lot of the Which is quite common, which yeah, with actors and agents, which can happen, yeah. It can happen for a variety of reasons. I've been through loads of agents in 20 odd years, and it's just can happen.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Yeah, these things can happen. Don't don't ever take anything personally as well, is what is what I always tell people. So things didn't work out, and a lot of the roles that I was being put forward for were very stereotypical.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Which is one of the questions I want to ask.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yeah, like, you know, do you want to play a terrorist every audition and stuff? So I'd kind of promised my dad, because my dad sort of wasn't really keen on me becoming an actor, but when he saw that I was gonna go into it, he was like, please don't just play a terrorist for the money and stuff. And I said to him, I'll try not to. So yeah, with that first agent, things didn't work out, and then I kind of thought I was applying for a lot of jobs on casting call pro or Mandy, and I was looking at them thinking, I I feel that I can tell better stories than these scripts that I'm seeing, or these scripts that I've been auditioned for. But rather than just say it, why not prove it? Yeah, and so what I did was when I finished at Art Ted, I joined a weekly class for Meisner technique, Meisner Acting Technique. So yeah, I joined this Meisner class, and I was in this Meisner class, and I thought to myself, you don't need a lot of money to make a to make a film or to make a short film anyway. And I'd always had this idea in mind of a movie called Honey, which is about a honey trap. It's based on a real incident that happened in our area at school when we were growing up. And I thought the story's already inside me. I just need to learn how to write a script properly. Because scripts, ladies and gents, have to be written in a particular format. You can't just write a script like you're writing a novel, you know, they have to it has to be formatted a particular way. So I had to learn that how to write a script in the accepted international format.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

You had an idea, you wrote something.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

I wrote I I wrote the script called Honey, um, and actually my book is called How I Made Honey.

SPEAKER_04 26:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Uh so it's more like a how-to guide. Uh so I can go into more details when we speak about that. But yeah, I wrote the script called Honey. I didn't have any budget, and I had to learn things along the way, like if you have no budget, what do you write? Do you write a lot of indoor scenes? No. Because if you write indoor scenes, you have to rent the indoor space of someone. So I wrote most of 99% of my scenes, I wrote them to take place outdoors.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

But then that's hard because you've got wind and outs external noise.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

That's right. But I wrote most of the scenes, like there was a scene in a graveyard, there was a scene in a park where we shot when it was quieter. So now you don't have to pay anybody. You can you can film for free, you don't have to pay for a location. You know, little tricks like that. Actors, I got all the actors from from I said to them in the beginning, I don't have any money. I asked people in my acting class to join. So it was it was uh the idea being that if you say if you see some script on Mandy or casting Call Pro, and you're like, I don't like these scripts, I think I can do better. Well prove it. Yeah, so that was just my attempt to say, I can tell my own stories, I don't have to wait for someone to cast me as a terrorist. Yeah, I can I can tell my own stories, and what I did with that, I wanted to focus on the writing and directing instead of the acting. So actually, my first sort of big thing that I did, I wasn't acting at all. I was so you didn't even put yourself on the No, I was the producer, the writer and the director, because that's already too many hats.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

It is people often do you know, do it all and put themselves in it, but that's nice that you created it.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Yeah, so that was really making honey was sort of like really the the the transformative piece of my life that really sort of after I did that, I had the confidence then to write other scripts where I could cast myself, and then from that I could create a showreel.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Excellent.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

So now I had a showreel with me doing an action scene, I had a showreel where I played a boxing coach, so you could see me doing sporting stuff. Um I had a showreel where uh there's a kissing scene with the wife or a girlfriend, so now people can see you, they're like, oh, because they can see it on screen and it works. So this you don't have to tell people exactly oh, I'm not just a terrorist on screen. You can see from my showreel that comedy works, fight choreography works, you know, different things work.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

So, this is one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. I mean, you've summed it up beautifully. But one of my questions was that have you felt that your ethnicity or your looks have held you back, but maybe pigeonholed you?

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Yes, I have felt that. That's a great question, and the answer to the question is yes, I have felt it, and the only way to break through it, I think, as I've just mentioned now, is to people like to see visual proof. Yeah, they like to see visual proof. So if you if you let's say you have an agent or a casting director who only wants to cast you in a particular way, and you say, No, but I I I can actually play comedy. I'm just I'm picking a random example, and you say no, I can actually play comedy, they they might say, Well, I don't see you as comedy. If you prove it, if you hire out a theatre, for example, as we mentioned earlier, if you hire out a theatre and do a stand-up routine there, and then they can see the proof that your your your show is sold out every night. And you can do funny, they're like, goodness, this person really can do comedy, their show is sold out every night. So it's like you do you see what I mean? You have to you have to prove it.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

And this is something I talk about on the podcast. I've spoken to casting directors about this and other actors, this pigeonholing and feeling that we have to prove that we are more than what we look like to the West. And I'm gonna say to the West, because that's where there's a lot of yeah, I feel stereotypes, and and I was thinking about this because I I can go on and list to you my lack of representation, but I was thinking about you, and I was thinking Omar Sharif. Yeah, probably one of the most famous Arab ethnicity. He's he was Egyptian um actor who played romance, that's right, action.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

I don't know, did he play comedy?

SPEAKER_00 30:59

He played comedy, yeah. I suppose it was an in funny girl, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

I mean, wow, what a union!

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Yeah, but then you got Brabus Kraus and the Masteries. Here we go.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

We've got we got Funny Girl 2. Yeah, I would love that. But yeah, isn't that beautiful? But when was that? 70s, 60s?

SPEAKER_00 31:20

That would have been late 60s. I think Funny Girl was 69.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Right. So why have we gone backwards?

SPEAKER_00 31:26

I know.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

This is what I do. I'm not making this up.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

No, you're not making this up. You're not just imagining this, you know.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

And I was trying to think of like that kind of coupling or even the representation of you on screen. I mean, it's probably not gonna happen in America, yeah. Because you're right, they are going to look at anyone who I call culturally ambiguous. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Yeah, I get that.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Culturally ambiguous, could he play South American or Italian or Greek, which I'm sure you could play all those things, yeah, but looks a bit too Arab.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

So we're gonna Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's interesting that you mentioned that because oh bless him, I forgot his name. But there's an actor from New Zealand, I think he's a New Zealand Maori. Yeah, and he he played, he plays Latinos. I think in training day with Denzel, he plays a Latino in Colombiana. Yeah. Do you remember that movie with Zoe Saaldania?

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

He plays her older brother, I think, and he you know, he plays a Latino. He's from New Zealand, but it's like he's got this kind of look where they're like, Yeah, you it's like you'll do. You're culturally ambiguous enough that we can just put you in different. It's it's a very interesting point you mentioned. And so you are not imagining it.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

It is we are going backwards, and it is happening, and it's it's it's a real shame, and because it it's not just us, it's a shame on, it's a shame on the next generation.

SPEAKER_04 32:52

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

So the next wannabe actor who sat there going, Well, I can't be an actor because then this is one of the reasons for the podcast. I can't be an actor because my nose isn't right, yeah, yeah. Or I can't be an actor because my skin colour isn't quite the right type of brown or black. Yeah. Because it it's like a Benetton advert, I sometimes feel where they they take a tick at diversity, but it's like safe diversity.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

That's right, that's right. It's safe diversity, and also I I find some of it to be very patronizing. I mean, you know, they they you know what's a good example of to know how we've gone backwards. For example, I I mentioned before people of my generation loving Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. So I grew up watching shows on TV like Kojak. Some of your younger viewers won't know what the hell I'm talking about. There used to be this show. By the way, Kojak was made before I was born, just to let you know, I'm not that old. But when we were growing up in the 80s on TV, they would show reruns of 70s shows, right? So, you know. Um, so they would show reruns of Kojak, Starsky and Hutch. And I love Starsky and Hutch. Poor Michael Glazer who played Starsky. Because when I was growing up, people said I looked like Starsky.

SPEAKER_04 34:11

Oh, cool. You know, because it's hard to believe now, but I had this I had this big curly hair.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

And I had a similar look to Starsky, and I love Starsky. And of course, he was in before Starsky and Hutch, he was in um Fiddler on the Roof.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Oh, really? I didn't know that. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

You must have seen Fiddler on the Roof.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Do you know what I haven't seen in years? Yeah. If you if you rewatch it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

If you rewatch it, the guy who plays He Wants to Marry Tevier's daughter. He's her suitor and he's a political activist. It's Starski from Starsky and Hutch. Poor Michael Glazer.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Sorry, ignorant hero. I have to re-watch it.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

And the reason I mentioned that show, on Starsky and Hutch, you had Huggy Bear, played by Antonio Fargas, and you had their boss played by an actor called I think it was George Hamilton or Bye Hamilton. No, Bernie Hamilton. Two great actors of colour.

SPEAKER_04 35:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

And never once in the show is their colour mentioned. They're just part of the cast. They're just two members, important members of the cast. No one ever mentions their colour, it's of no importance. And and we've gone backwards because now, when you look at when they're trying to be politically correct, for example, and cast people like you or people like me, it's almost like they write it into the script that the ethnicity has to be mentioned in the script and made a big deal of. And uh, you know, if they cast you, they might make sure that there's a scene with a bar mixer, for example.

SPEAKER_04 35:39

But why do you have to have that scene?

SPEAKER_00 35:42

It's like just cast uh in a normal role that could have been played by anybody, but it happens to be played by you, or cast me in a normal role that could have been played by anybody, but happens to be played by me. But this thing where which is what they were doing in the 70s, I think. Like you mentioned with Omar Sharif, like I've just mentioned with Starsky and Hutch, Kojak, you know, Tennessee Valis was Greek or of Greek origin, so we've gone backwards.

SPEAKER_01 36:06

I think we have, and I I don't really like using that phrase woke because it comes with so many connotations, but I do feel we've gone so far the other way. Now people are too scared to do anything right or wrong. So they kind of do a lot of safecasting, and again, it it almost has to be really contextualized so that no one can call them out about it.

SPEAKER_04 36:29

That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

I I agree with you 100%. I mean, how do you could you could you give me an example of when you feel that you underrepresented? You were underrepresented, or is there a particular role, for example, that you feel that you wanted to go up for and you couldn't because of your yeah?

SPEAKER_01 36:49

I've um I've had so in my 20-odd years of acting, which has been very much broken up by having children and stopping and making sure I had money for them. I so when I was younger in my twenties, I used to get cast as a victim all the time, and I think that's purely based because I'm little. So in a scene, it would look very feasible that I could be uh raped and murdered. So I I played a lot of victims. Um because of your physical stature. I think because of my physical stature and a lot of prostitutes. Right. Um I think again it was a murdered prostitute or something. I was a murdered prostitute on Foil's Wall, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Uh so I think I love that show button. Yeah, well, um, and the whole uh kind of history of my acting career is a lot of it ended up on the cutting room floor, including a scene on Foil's Wall when I was speaking and then killed. But no, all you get is um the naked prostitute in the grave, which was me. So yeah, there were that's a lot of my history um with my acting career, unfortunately. So in my early 20s, definitely victim or child, and then now as I'm coming back into it, mother roles, and I have been up for Jewish type characters. I heard in the past 20 years in castings, I have heard they wouldn't be allowed to say it now, but I did have feedback saying that I wasn't quite the English rose because I looked too ethnic, and the only thing I could put that down to was my nose because I couldn't think my colour of my skin, I'm so fair, I don't look ethnic, I'm not a person of colour, and my hair. Okay, I have as a child, it was very big, like a big jufro, you know, that big curls. But the only thing I could put it down to in later years was my nose. So I do think perhaps I am difficult to cast because I'm petite and I'm pretty in some ways, but not pretty enough. And that that's maybe that's my self-esteem issue, my paranoia, but I so in terms of yeah, what roles would I like to be seen for? Anything when I'm doing my shows, I play everything from Queen Elsa to um Cruella Deville. It doesn't matter, I'm an actress, I can I can be evil, I can be funny, I can be cute. Yeah, so I I would happily go up for anything, but I think I'm gonna I want to talk to you about this before we do that, yeah, because you know I'm I'm an qualified English teacher, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Isn't teaching such a great preparation for acting? Because having to entertain uh a room full of 30 strangers, yeah, and they're relying on you not just to learn whatever whatever skill you're happy to be, whether you're teaching English or in your case with children at Christmas parties or other kinds of parties, but the fact that if you don't deliver it in an entertaining way, they're gonna be bored and not come back, you know. So it's such a great preparation. 100% agree.

SPEAKER_01 40:01

One of the actors who has worked with me for over 20 years, he's in his 70s, he's like an Ian McKellen, he's like a Gandalf who's got so much charisma and stature, and he always says exactly that. He says a true actor can entertain a room full of children and keep their attention and pass on the story or the lesson, whatever it is. He said, put any actor in that spot, if they can't do it, they're not a proper actor.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Yeah, yeah. And I think he's right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if you can't tell stories around a campfire, so to speak, as the old cliche goes. I mean, George Lucas, when George Lucas spoke about making Star Wars, he was talking about mythology, and he said, I wanted to bring back that feeling of the old American West where people would sit around a campfire and tell stories, and he goes, That's where Star Wars comes from.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

And that is what a TV is the TV is the campfire, it's where people gather around, have a shared experience, and then afterwards they switch it off, turn the campfire off, go to bed, but then they'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Exactly right, yeah. Yeah, so coming back to your to the thing about the ethnicity, yeah, I I I can totally uh relate to you and sympathize with you. I I I mean this thing about they say you're pretty people not particularly but do you think here's a question for me do you think people are genetically programmed to find particular ethnicities attractive? I mean I mean I think I mean I I I think they're very beautiful. But could that be because you and I are from the same part of the world or we have the we're both because we're both semitic, we're both semitic, for example.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

I never fancy I never fancied Jewish men growing up. Really? Um I always went for the opposite. I went for like really British boys who look like indie guys, you know. Um, because my parents were very pushy, saying, Yeah, me. Oh, they were trying to push you towards your and I'm gonna be like, No, I don't want to, I want to meet Tom. Yeah, so um you little rebellious. Yeah, so I purposely pushed away from that, but now when I see Jewishness in younger generation or say Middle Eastern look, I am actually not necessarily attracted to that, but I I go, Well, that's beautiful. Yeah, so I but I so I think purposely in my mind I was uh psychologically pushing away. But in answer to your question, are we programmed to not think something's beautiful or not? I disagree, I'll tell you why. Yeah, when I go and have my nails done, yeah, they're Vietnamese, and they once were talking about me, and I could tell they were talking about me, they all started looking, and I felt really uncomfortable. And then they said to me in English, they said, We all think you're really beautiful, and I said, Oh, thank you. And I said, Why? And they said, This is weird. You're gonna think this is well, I found it weird, yeah, because your ears. I went, My ears. Now I always wear my hair down, I don't like my ears. Same reason I don't like my nose, I think it's too big. And they said, Because your ears are so big and they have lobes, and in our culture, people they want big ears and they want lobes, they don't have them. And I was like, really? I was like, Wow, thank you. Yeah, and then I spoke to somebody who is Japanese. I spent some time in Japan. Actually, you might maybe you had it in China. I had this the amount of people who stopped, they wanted to take my photo because my nose was longer, larger, my features were bigger, my hair was bigger. So, in answer to your question, I think it's only in the West we think a certain beauty is prescribed. I don't know what your lived experience is. Like you said, you spent time in China.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

I've had exactly the same comment as you about my ears. So again. So when I was at school and school children can be cruel, but don't let that define you. I've always said this. You can uh it whatever happens at school, you have to let that slide. Yeah, you have to let that slide.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

So it's a tiny part of your life.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

It's only a tiny part of your life, and also because that's just the way school children are. I don't think it's it I don't think it involves malice, it's just that age of children, you know. Uh and then you everyone grows out of it, so you've got to let that slide.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

So when I was there's always something, so like I know, I remember in my day, I don't know if it was the same as yours, anyone who had ginger hair was teased. Yeah, now people with ginger hair are like lauded. Yeah, that's right, yeah. Things go around in circles, yeah. So you don't know, so it's always something.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

When I was growing up, they used to call me FA Cup because of the years.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Um that's kind of funny, but it's not when it's you in the situation. Well, I can see the funny side of it, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Uh I mean, you know, I think you know, when school children are being cruel to each other, it's it's it's there can be a lot of comedy involved. I mean, we had a guy, uh a mixed-race kid called Jerome. He his put downs are very witty. Just to give you an example. So he used to call me FA Cut because of my ears. But um, we used to have this other kid in school called Solanke, and we were in a sociology class. Sociology teacher was called Mrs. Johnson, and I'll never forget this. And she was explaining that when we write essays in sociology, we should not be biased. And Jerome put his hand up and said, Miss, what does the word biased mean? And she said, one-sided. So he said to her, Does that mean Solanke's head shape is biased?

unknown 45:41

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 45:44

Wow, God, he was waiting for that.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

He was waiting for that.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

Yeah, so I mean, it's a very witty thing, but it's cruel to the person it's happening to and it will stay in your head, so you will take that comment and you'll be worried about your ears or my case, my nose, or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

But the point I want to make is you mustn't let that affect you into adult life. I'll tell you why, because now if you go into an audition or a job interview or in any sociable situation or any professional situation, don't have it in your mind if you see someone looking at your ears thinking, Oh my god, they think I've got FA cup ears like the kids back at school. Because that can still be part of your consciousness. No, you have to you have to let that slide, you have to let that part of your life just go.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

But they could be looking at your ears and going, Wow, they're magnificent. Exactly. Because in our culture, we want ears like that or hair like that.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

And I've had this, so like you in my travels in the Far East, I've had the exact same comment where I had people in Hong Kong and in Malaysia say to me, and in southern China say to me, we love your ears, and and in our culture, when the ear lobe is quite prominent and when the ear is quite big, uh, they say it's a sign of good health and good fortune and all this kind of stuff, and they're actually quite jealous of it. And the other thing is here's the interesting thing I mean, a gentleman never tells, you know that I'm a gentleman, so I won't go into detail. But for example, in dating, yeah. When I was growing up, I was like you, I wanted to be a re uh rebel against my parents, so I only found the kind of English rose attractive. You know, girls with names like Cassandra and Alison and so on.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

Oh Cassandra's Greek. Ah, it's a Greek name. But I'm joking, I'm just teasing you because my dad was obsessed with Greece, so he loved the Cassandra. We had dog, of course. Yeah, Cassandra.

SPEAKER_00 47:36

But you know a lot of a lot of English and Cassie. Yeah, Cassie. So we had a girl at school called Cassie, another girl called Alison, and they were uh I mean, you know, I but I I I wouldn't dare, you know, they were dating you know, the other sort of English boys at our school who played guitar and all that. And even though I was captain of the football team and a very good footballer, but I used to always think it doesn't matter because of my ethnicity as well. So I find that attractive, but there wasn't any reciprocation. And then suddenly when I went travelling, when I was in the Far East and when I'd been traveling to other parts of the world, like uh Latin America, you know, Eastern Europe, I was suddenly very popular. Because you're exotic, you're different. Because you're exotic and you're different, and then even here in England, once I was back in England, and as you know, there was a period, say around 20 years ago, where there was a lot of Eastern European migration into into England when countries like Poland and Romania when they joined the European Union, yeah, and suddenly, you know, at that point, it was like Polish girls, Romanian girls, for some reason, and I was like, What is it like? And actually, I had one of them explain it to me and they said, You know, in our country, most men just look like you, so they have a shaved head, you know, they like to go to the gym, for example. So we're just used to finding that look attractive, and our country. So it wasn't, yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't the difference that was attractive.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

So you did you actually spot a memory that I wanted to share with you because I mentioned it in one of my podcasts, and it's a really sad memory for me. You said, Did I fancy people who look like me? I don't know, but at primary school, and it would be really weird if he's listening, and I would be actually happy for him to reach out because I would like to know why. There was a boy I had a crush on, I was only about nine, and he was called Idris. Oh I don't know where Idris was from, and I really had a crush on him. I thought he was the most beautiful boy in my class, and he had big hair and big eyes, and everyone was playing Kiss Chase, and I ran after him thinking I'm gonna get to kiss Idris, and he hit me. Oh no, and it he really hurt me, and I didn't understand why. Um we went and I well, I kind of thought he just didn't want to be kissed by me, but actually he then he said, he said, Your people are killing my people. Oh and to this day I actually don't know what he means. I presume, being the only Jewish girl in the school, he must have told his parents that perhaps, you know, gosh, the Middle East is Israel's always at war with someone, so maybe he interpreted that as Jessica's Israeli, I'm not Israeli, but anyway, he maybe his parents said Israel at war with this country.

SPEAKER_04 50:25

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:26

Um maybe something was internalized for him to think I was a villain.

SPEAKER_04 50:30

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 50:31

And instead of being kissed, I was to be hit.

SPEAKER_04 50:34

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

What upset me is the school never dealt with it. I would think, I'd like to think now they would sit the children down and talk about that.

SPEAKER_04 50:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:43

All I remember is he was told off and kept in for a lunchtime detention, and I was told, it's okay, you'll be okay, Jess. But I mean my ego was crushed, and part of me obviously was crushed because I I've internalized that my whole life, and I've lived with that. And perhaps that was the last boy I have fancied who looks say Middle Eastern because part of me thought, well, I'm not accepted.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Yeah, it's a cycle. See, it has that is sad. This is why I say this is why I said earlier. Don't let I always say this don't let childhood these childhood experiences have that kind of long-lasting impact on you. You've really got to um let chop that away now, yeah. And and just let that go.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

And like when you when you in a way, it would have been nice to sit down and watch Omar Sharif and Barbara Stroid together at that time in my life and go, no, that's just one person's thought, it's not everybody's.

SPEAKER_00 51:40

Oh, yeah, that's right. Anyway, and also we we have this whole, I mean, this opens up a wider debate, is that we're not able to people in this country not able to differentiate a Jewish person from England from the state of Israel and what's happening in the Middle East. That's a whole other thing. It's a whole other debate for another day, we don't have to get to that.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

You know, all sorts of race or Islamophobia, whatever is in people's psyche.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

That's a different debate. But in terms of cost in terms of being an actor, yeah, or just being an adult who's trying to make it in life, and you've had childhood experiences or experienced bullying that school or or negative childhood experiences, you really have to shut that away because it was a long time ago, the world is different now, you're different now, yeah. And it's just it's just not helpful, yeah, it's not helpful for you going forward. Do you see what I'm seeing what I'm trying to say? Yeah, and you you you have to just shut it away and and and move on, and don't let it don't go into meetings, auditions. It's difficult, I know, because we're human beings. Yeah, so I go into an audition, and it's impossible not to have psychological baggage because I'm I'm a person, I'm a human being, but I have to try. Yeah, I have to try and approach each day, each audition, each meeting, or now we're doing a podcast together, without without having any sort of negative try and be positive and and try and be like a care bear. You know how the care bears, you know.

SPEAKER_04 53:06

Love care bears.

SPEAKER_00 53:07

Again, mentioning very old TV shows. Oh, is that still popular? Yeah, they are, um and just spread that kind of sunshine. Yeah, and that's how you make a memorable. I mean, people have said to me, again, a gentleman shouldn't blow one's own trumpet, but you know, people have mentioned to me that in this case it's good to share, yeah. People have mentioned to me, you know, that you know, whenever I'm in a social situation, you know, I'm positive and I try and sort of raise people's spirits up and you know that kind of thing. And I think that's important. Yeah, and I think you're the same as well. I just certainly when I met you at the Wimbledon Theatre, I had a very, you know, I came away from meeting you thinking, oh that she's she really boosted me to have a lot of.

SPEAKER_01 53:46

Something my grandma left with me as an immigrant, a Russian, Eastern European, Jewish immigrant, and maybe it's something your dad felt that because we are a minority, you always have to be on your best behaviour and always be kind and shine the light to people because you don't want them to come away going, that immigrant, that person of colour is this. You want them to come away going, that Jew I just met is really nice. She's not gonna kill us. I don't want people to not gonna blow up like and that's an awful baggage to carry with us. And I don't know if that's uh I think it is a common um kind of hereditary immigrant feeling to have, isn't it? It is, it is a bad legacy, it's yeah, yeah, awful legacy. We shouldn't be carrying that with us, but if it makes us nicer human beings, then that's good.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

Okay, so you've said to me sorry to hijack your no, please hijack my podcast.

SPEAKER_01 54:48

I have more questions.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

You've said to me about the experience in the casting where they said to you about your particular look. Yeah, have you had other experiences to balance that out where somebody said we love your look and we want to cast you because of your look?

SPEAKER_01 55:02

No, and this is one of the questions I had for you. You see, I feel, and and you can tell me if I'm wrong, I think it's more acceptable to have bigger features if you're a man. I think it's down to gender. I can list quite a few: Adrian Brodie, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzmann, who have particularly large noses, who are incredibly good looking on screen, they can play romantic lead, comedy, action, you name it, all of it. Um, obviously, people like um Adam Sandler, who I think they're the highest paid actor now in the industry, they've made a career around, I think, their looks, but they're men.

SPEAKER_04 55:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

So I feel because I'm a woman, I'm expected to have petite features, petite looks, but I feel men have more opportunities. But that's the question I'm asking you. Do you feel like that?

SPEAKER_00 55:58

Yes, I do feel there is a gender difference in that sense. I think men in general, I'm not just talking about a larger nose or larger ears, even character-wise or or height-wise or physique-wise. I think men, there's a much wider scope for men and a broader range of roles for men. And I think it also reflects real life. We were talking before when we came in about Brazilian people, weren't we? Yeah, and you mentioned how Brazilian women, in particular, women in Brazil, feel this great pressure to have surgery.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

Yeah, but it's not even pressure, it's part of their culture, it's part of their culture.

SPEAKER_00 56:39

Yeah, whereas I'm guessing that the men, well I'm not guessing, because I've met lots of Brazilians, uh, and the men are not under the same pressure.

SPEAKER_01 56:49

No, apart from their teeth. All the Brazilian men I've met have dazzling white teeth. But perhaps that's a new thing.

SPEAKER_00 56:56

So I think in the acting industry, uh, as well as life in general, I don't think men are under the same pressure to look a certain way.

SPEAKER_01 57:03

Unless you're gay. I've had a lot of gay followers reach out to me, say this is so imparent in our tribe, our society, the pressure to look good as a gay man is, I think, from what they've told me, worse than a straight woman.

SPEAKER_00 57:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

But in terms of acting, I don't believe the pressure is there for a man. I think you have more freedom to look a bit different, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:30

Yeah, no, I agree, I agree. I think I think you've made a good point, and and I actually do agree with it. And I've found I by observing others, but also in my own case, you can when you're a man, you can get away with more in terms of if you're slightly out of shape, um, if you have a slightly bigger nose or bigger features, broader shoulders, or even slimmer shoulders in some cases.

SPEAKER_01 57:51

It's more forgiving.

SPEAKER_00 57:52

It's more they are more forgiving. So and it's I think it's a reflection of real life. In real life, I think women, away from the acting world, I think women feel uh under pressure to be judged on their looks a lot more than men, for example.

SPEAKER_01 58:05

So on that, yeah, I'm gonna ask you the big question. All right. Do you know what the big question is?

SPEAKER_00 58:10

I have a feeling I know what it is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:11

So, based on everything we've said, do you think if I were to change my nose, so have a nose job, make my nose more acceptable in my mind, this is, make it smaller, uh a little bit turned up. Uh do you think I would get the big break? Or do you think I should change my nose? That's the big question. It's horrible. I'm I'm putting people on the spot like that. It's a very horrible question. It's a horrible question.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

I won't say thank you for asking that. Um there's two ways to answer this. So, first of all, as I'm as just a man who's met you, this is only the second time we're meeting in person, and um I think you're very beautiful, so I find you very attractive, but again, I think it's because it's not just the nose, it's the way it balances with your whole face, so your eyes, you know, you have very beautiful eyes, you have a beautiful mouth. My husband's gonna listen to this. Yeah, lucky man.

SPEAKER_01 59:15

No, he's all he's always told me that, but I am very lucky, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:18

And the way it balances with I mean, there's a balance. It's hard, maybe it's hard to explain in words, but as human beings, we have an instinct, don't we? I mean, you don't, you know, if you see if you see Brad Pitt walking along the street, you don't sit there going, Oh, I fancy Brad Pitt because the nose is in proportion to the right. You don't go into detail. I know what you're doing. You just get that, you just get that ping in your belly where you're like, I fancy that bloke. Do you see what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 59:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:43

Same with me. If I saw Elizabeth Taylor or Audrey Hepburn, I don't go, well, you know that Audrey Hepburn's nose is exactly in proportion. You don't go into that detail. You just get a as a human being, you get that ping inside you, you go, I don't know why, but I fancy that person. So again, with you, if I'm going to look at it, if I had to ask myself why you're so attractive, I think it might be I'm genetically engineered to find somebody like you're attractive. But if we're going to look scientifically, there's a proportion between the eyes, the mouth, the way the hair balances out. Acting-wise, what I would say is you know there are it's interesting because my niece, my niece recently, when she was on a recent trip to England, I think I told you she lives out in Dubai.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:30

Yes, you did, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:31

And of course, I'm very biased, so I think anybody who's my flesh and blood is the most beautiful. Yeah, I have the most stunning nieces as well. Um but when she was here, she mentioned to me, she said, Oh, uncle, you know, you know, there's this procedure where you can just inject something and it slims the nose, so it's not permanent, and then you can get the injection every six months or one year. So, what I would say to you is you can run an experiment.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

I didn't know about this.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:01

So okay, go on.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:04

Because when she told me about that, this is inside I did some Googling.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:07

Okay, this is inside Saudi knowledge because also something we didn't talk about is in parts of the Arab states, uh, nose jobs are oh, they're very they're they're very prolific.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:17

Yeah, lots of people have them, especially when you go to affluent parts of the Arab. I mean, when you go to sort of like Dubai and the Emirates, uh Qatar, places like that, people are more affluent. Whereas in my father's country, for example, Egypt, Egypt is a poor country by comparison, so you wouldn't find a lot of Egyptians being able to afford those kind of procedures. So, what I would say to you is you can run an experiment. I'd prefer you didn't, but I think you have your heart set on it. I can get that feeling. So I think you can run an experiment where you can get a non-surgical nose job. Okay, a non-surgical, so it's not permanent, yeah, and it's done with injections, it's done with a couple of very artistic flair where they will make your nose smaller and and slimmer. And I think that lasts for about six to eight months, and those six to eight months will give you enough time to see what kind of a react different reaction you get. Yeah, not just in the acting world, but even even in in the general world, yeah, you know, because the world gives you feedback, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:22

Not just and working with kids, they always tell the truth. Oh, kids always tell the truth, yeah. So if they like, I don't know, for some reason kids stopped engaging in me, it might be because my nose is too normal. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:35

Yeah, they're not unique enough, yeah. Not unique enough. Um, so you you you for example, when you saw me today, you said you mentioned about how I looked.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:45

And I said you look very smart, but thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:49

And this is one of the things that I've spoken about in my book as well, which is when I first went when all the crazy stuff happened, like I I was on The Crown and Indiana Jones, and I was in all the newspapers. I think there must have been a period, I think, the day after Indiana Jones came out where I was I was trending on on the internet, on Google to the extent that I hadn't told my neighbours, I don't think I've told you the story. No, I hadn't told any of my neighbours that I had become an actor. So one of my neighbours actually mentioned because when you when you become an actor in a in a in a show like The Crown on Jenna Jones, what happens is you you get you start to get treated even during filming like a VIP, so they send fancy cars around to your house. So your neighbours were saying fancy cars to pick you up in the morning to take you for filming. So my neighbours were seeing all these like Mercedes and Audis and BMWs with a driver coming out, opening the door, saying, Mr. Kamel, you know, and me sitting in the back seat, and they were looking at me going, Where's this guy? This is not how he goes to work every morning. What's going on here?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:58

So exciting.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:58

And this went on for like six to eight weeks, you know, a couple of months. On Indiana Jones, I was on the set for six weeks. Uh on The Crown, I was in season five and season six for several weeks each time. So it happened a few times, and so but my neighbours never actually came up to me and said, Why is there a fancy carpet here? They never sort of had the guts to say that. But then one day, this was the day after Indiana Jones came out, and I'd been on I'd been on Good Morning Britain, you know, and ITV News.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:25

You did the what's it called? The junket, is it the junket brand? Press junket. Press junket, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

Um and I had a neighbor knock on my door with his phone, you know, and he pulled out his phone and he'd recorded this interview off the TV, and he was like, Who's that? You didn't tell us that you were an actor, you know, and stuff like this. Um why was I bringing this up?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:47

Ah, just realised the time as well, by the way. I have we have 10 minutes left because I've got to run and pick up my stomach for the five. Oh no, we're gonna do this very quickly.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:55

Yeah, so yeah, so what the point we're trying to make about is that when this happened was, and I mentioned this in the book, I was still not used to being photographed in public or being on TV. So a friend of mine uh had seen a picture of me online, which a paparazzi had taken, of me entering the ITV building, and I was just wearing Nike, Nike trainers, you know, the kind of stuff that I've been wearing all my life, and he rang me and he said, What the hell are you doing? You know, life has changed now. You can't go around in your Nike trainers and your teacher.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:28

Yeah, but he's Adam Sandler, he's a whole different level. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:32

When you reach that level, you know like Mick Jagger, you can wear a whatever you want.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:36

But you want to present yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:37

He said you have to start investing in the point being that I had to sort of change my address, and when you do that, you do notice different reactions. So I'm trying to say that if you try this temporary nose job, so non surgical, so it's not a big commitment, yeah, it's only a six month commitment, and then you'll be able to notice how do people react to you in real life, and also with your auditions and your self. Tapes and maybe get new headshots done with a new nose and see how that works out for six months to eight months. If it's going well, do another six months of the non-surgical one. And if that goes well, then maybe try something more perfect. This is eye-opening.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:15

I'm my head's blowing about this. Right, Mo.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:20

Mo. That's just thank you. Um please now just I want to.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:27

Once the cameras are off, can we do can we do Oh Marjorie from Barbara's Prize? Oh, what are you doing? Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:35

No, but I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:36

I do think we should make uh no, we're going to we're going to get script writing and yeah, yeah. But yeah, and this is not just the advice I'll give to just anybody watching this, all your viewers who are watching this. There are many non-surgical procedures that you can do now. And I'm speaking from someone because I've had family members who feel the insecurities and have asked me. For example, uh, even with men's jawlines, you can get things where you can you don't have to do a permanent operation, you can inject, yeah, you can inject stuff to alter the jawline, and it lasts for about six months. So that gives you six months of experimental time where you're just to see how it feels, and then if you like it, make it more permanent. If you don't like it, you don't have to do it again.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:21

Like you said, judge people's reaction, yeah. Right, Mary, tell us about your book.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:25

So, yeah, I I decided to write a book. It's called How I Made Honey from English Teacher to Hollywood Actor. So it's two things in one it's part memoir. So my experiences of some of the stuff you've heard about today, like meeting Hainsley, getting involved in acting that way, how to create a show reel, um, you know, how to put on a pub theatre uh show and how to get yourself out there, how to get yourself out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:54

Did you talk about the Eddie Murphy technique?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:56

I talk about the Eddie Murphy technique, uh, how to get into private members' clubs just by charming the uh charming the clipboard girl or charming the security guard, and um so yeah, how I made honey from English teacher to Hollywood actor. So part of it is a memoir, and part of it is a how to book. So I explain in detail how to write a script, what format to use, if you have a low budget, what type of locations to use according to your budget, how to cast actors, how to join an acting class so that you can ask the actors in your acting class to work for free. Because you can't ask Tom Cruise to be in your film for free, but you can ask your friend from your acting class to be in your in your in your film for free. So that that kind of thing, how to find a cameraman or cameraman, you know, camera person, how to find a sound editor, sound recorders, and also the other thing I mentioned in the book is that when you it's almost like you know, in the East they have this philosophy about if you put stuff out in the universe, yeah, it comes back to you. Yeah, so this is part of the stuff I talk about is that I found on my journey, and I'm still finding now as we speak, the more you do stuff, the more stuff comes back to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:09

And this is exactly what actually I said to you when you walked in. You went, How are you doing? And I said, I've been busy. And it is that the more you give out to the universe, the more you get back. Yeah, and the more positive things you give out, the more positive you get back.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:22

That's it, you've hit the nail on the head, and even doing things like just look, on my way in to see Just Today, I was reading this on the two, Sidney Lumet, uh, one of the most famous directors of the 20th century. He directed 12 Angry Men. Great, great film. Uh, his book is about making movies. Now, a lot of the stuff in this book is stuff that I know already from experience, but just just reading. I've read Kirk Douglas's biography. I talk about this called The Ragman's Son. Um, I only mention it because your grandmother was from Eastern Europe, a Russian Jewish immigrant, and uh Kirk Douglas was from the same part of Russia where Jews were persecuted, so that's why they left and went to America. And the idea being that read books, read biographies of actors and actresses that you admire, read books by directors and on how to direct, uh, join acting classes, tell your friends from your acting class let's make a film together, or let's hire a theatre. You can hire a pub theatre that has 30 seats in it, and put on a show and then invite agents. So, what happens is what you'll find is when you put that energy out into the universe, for some reason it just comes back to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:38

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:39

I think also you have a very, very sane philosophy in life. I can really tell this about you, and I think it's something nice about the east, the far east meets the Middle East, meets the west, and I think there's a really lovely balance with you, with your words of wisdom and your inspiration.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:55

Well, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:56

Thank you so much for coming on the pod.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:59

It's been my absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. Uh, I sometimes feel like Groucho Marx.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:06

You need the big hair, you can't.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:07

No, in these situations where people, you know, Groucho Marx used to say, I wouldn't want to join any club that would have me as a member. Yeah, so it's like, why would you want to invite me on a podcast? But thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:17

Because you're so relevant, and everything you said has been valuable and really precious. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:23

Well, it's very kind of you. Thanks for having me on. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:26

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:27

Thanks everyone, bye.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:31

I don't think when I met Mohammed, I quite realized how relevant he was to the podcast. Everything he said was not only inspiring and I think brilliant for young actors or anyone starting out in the industry to hear, but also just so what I feel and what goes round in my head. I just feel like he's completely validated me and my points and the whole reason for doing this podcast as well. So thank you, Mohammed. It's just it was brilliant having you on the couch uh for the big question. And I'm gonna listen over that again for my own sake, not just for editing purposes, because it hit so many notes. So if this feels relevant to you or resonates with you in any way, I want to hear from you. I want to hear your view on all of this, and maybe you can come on the podcast as well. So thank you again to Mo and his book will be out very soon. I will put a link to it, how to make honey, about being in the film industry, making a movie, getting out there, and also a memoir of how he got into it. And I love his story. And again, it it comes back to storytelling. This is what this is about. People, humans, we're all humans just trying to share our stories and connect with people. So I hope that we have connected with you today. Thank you for listening to the big question. I'm Jessica Kingsley, and this is my podcast. Bye.