Mena Massoud on Aladdin: “Middle Eastern hair is very… resilient”

Gulf News

Read the full story here: https://bit.ly/2JXO7ct  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos  Egyptian-Canadian actor Mena Massoud embodies Aladdin in Disney’s  latest live-action remake – but how far did he have to go to transform into character? The actor dishes on getting the right look – plus, growing up on acting icons like Adel Emam and Abdel Halim Hafez.  #Aladdin #GulfNews #movie #MenaMassoud #celebrity #film #cinema #entertainment

Transcript

00:00No, Toronto's a great city, but it is a little difficult.

00:10I think there's a little bit of a ceiling in Toronto, but it was great.

00:14I went and I got my training there and I did the arts all throughout high school and elementary

00:19school.

00:20It was a great, great town.

00:21Hey, can you make me a prince?

00:23There is a lot of gray area in make me a prince.

00:27I could just make you a prince.

00:29Oh, no.

00:30Y'all see my palace?

00:31I think it's incredibly important.

00:33It's one of the things I'm most proud of in this film.

00:36They did a great job casting very authentically.

00:41Everybody in this film represents a different minority group and visibly diverse group.

00:46Me, Marwan, Naveed and Nassim are all certainly from the Middle East and North Africa, but

00:53Will is African American as well and Naomi represents India and a lot of representation

00:59throughout Europe as well.

01:01It is curly.

01:02What else would it be?

01:04You know, Christine Blundell, an Oscar-winning makeup artist, she worked on the film and

01:09she worked closely with me and we just had to chemically straighten it a little bit and

01:13try to get that look, but I like that my hair can do both things.

01:19I think Middle Eastern hair is very resilient.

01:22Yeah, yeah.

01:25I grew up on Abdel Halim Hafez with Ismail Yassin, a great comedic actor and a lot, a

01:32lot of actors.

01:33And then, you know, I think Adel Emam also changed and revolutionized the game in comedy

01:39in Egypt.

01:40So, we have such a rich cinematic history.

01:43TV show might be a long commitment, but I would certainly go back and want to do a film

01:48for sure.

01:50It was a dream of mine growing up to act with Adel Emam, but he is getting older, you know,

01:55so we'll see.

01:59Yeah, absolutely.

02:00I mean, we discussed in length the overlying themes in this film.

02:03I think there's some great lessons to be learned from this.

02:07You know, he goes on a journey of personal identity and falling in love and learning

02:11that you are good enough as who you are, not having to change.

02:16So there's some really big messages that we sat down and discussed in length.

02:25Get him!

02:43Yeah, I definitely, you know, I grew up watching this film.

02:46It was playing on at the house all the time, as I'm sure many Middle Easterns, they could

02:50only kind of identify with this one movie and these few characters.

02:55So I definitely felt the responsibility and I hope I did it justice.

Category

Transcript

Recommended