A wooden chair is positioned perilously close to the edge of one of Venice’s shimmering water canals. Sitting on it, Dhafer L’Abidine leans back so it is balanced on its rear legs. He takes a sip of the espresso that he’s holding in his hand.
You can feel the surrounding crew tense collectively, their eyes instinctively darting between the actor and the water’s edge as the photographer snaps away. Sensing the unease, L’Abdine flashes a reassuring grin. “Don’t worry, I do my own stunts,” he says with a chuckle.
It’s a fitting snapshot of where Dhafer L’Abidine is today—confident, in demand, and willing to take a risk on himself.
Things are seasonably busy in Venice. Its smack bang in the middle of the famed Venice Film Festival, and L’Abidine is pulling double duty. Fresh off of a plane from Tunis, via Paris, his morning is spent on set with Esquire Middle East accompanied by his full repertoire of smoldering looks, charming charisma and dashing leading man energy. In the afternoon he’ll be whisked off to speak on stage as part of a panel showcasing the golden new wave of Arab cinema—something that he is both an active part in, and a shining example of.
Known for his handsome features and magnetic screen presence, the Tunisian actor has been one of the leading men of the Arab film and TV world for years. But recently, he’s been loading further weight onto his broad shoulders—behind the camera, writing and directing stories, ones that he doesn’t believe are being told, well, not properly anyway.
The setting could hardly be more appropriate. Venice, with its labyrinth of canals and timeless architecture, is a city made for cinema. “Everything about this place is cinematic,” remarks L’Abidine later as we navigate the waterways on a sleek wooden water taxi en route to the Hilton Molino Stucky—a one-time flour mill now turned into a striking landmark. The morning sun reflects off the water, casting dancing light onto L’Abidine’s face. “Shooting a film here would be incredible. Logistically, it would probably be a nightmare, sure, but visually, it’s extraordinary? You can’t take a bad shot!”
Extraordinary is a choice word, as L’Abidine’s journey to this point has been anything but ordinary. Born in Tunis, he first fell in love with film as a young boy hanging around the rental shop that his family owned that rewound VHS tapes.
“I used to stay there and watch films for hours and hours. I was always intrigued by filmmaking, but people anyways told me that I was ‘too shy’ to succeed,” he recalls. “It was something I knew deep down that I would love to do. But I foolishly believed what other people told me and I never tried to explore it.”
That presumed shyness didn’t translate to the football pitch, where he let his feet do the talking. And talk they did. Eternally growing in confidence, for years L’Abidine was one of Tunisian football’s brightest young stars with aspirations of leading his country to World Cup qualification, and potentially a playing career in one of Europe’s big leagues. He would fantasize about pulling on the red of his beloved Liverpool and hearing the adoring Kop sing his name. However, that was not the script that had been written for him. When injury and petty rivalries permanently sidelined his footballing dreams, it was that original unexplored passion for film that provided him a path forward.
Despite initial self-doubt and societal expectations, he briefly found work as a model, which opened the door to smaller on-screen acting roles. His breakthrough came with a Tunisian commercial, propelling him into the spotlight. It was while riding the crest of that wave, L’Abidine took his first biggest gamble on himself, and moved to the UK to further challenge himself as an actor. He enrolled in the Birmingham School of Acting, but his path was far from smooth. Struggling with the language barrier and growing financial constraints, he took on menial jobs, including dishwashing, to support himself.
The early years were marked by immense hardship and the self-doubt came creeping back in. Yet, L’Abidine persevered, fuelled by an unwavering determination to succeed. Gradually, he would start booking roles in popular British television series like Dream Team, The Bill and Doctors—roles picked to both build his résumé and showcase his versatility.
They marked a turning point for Dhafer L’Abidine, a rubber stamp of confidence and conviction that would propel him into the international film scene with notable appearances in The Da Vinci Code (2006), Children of Men (2006) and Sex and The City 2 (2010). But while the roles were starting to come, he felt an undeniable pull to return to a revitalised Arab cinema. Just like his football career before, he had proven to himself, and others, that he could do it, only this time, his next move (and his future) would be on his own terms.
While L’Abidine quickly established himself as credible—and, importantly, bankable—leading man across multiple Arabic films and TV shows, it’s his work behind the camera that’s now capturing people’s attention. Having finally taken the plunge with his directorial debut Ghodwa in 2021, he followed it up with the more ambitious To My Son (2023), which he directed, co-wrote and starred in, despite it being in a Saudi dialect, which he had to learn.
After Venice, L’Abidine is returning to Tunis to finish pre-production on his new film, Sophia—his third as both writer and director. It’s a new chapter that he is eager to talk about. “I’ve always been drawn to stories that link different worlds—particularly the ones that I know best, between the West and Arab world” he says. “Those cultures crossover more than we realize, yet I don’t see enough stories that portray those relationships, and the depths of those relationships. So that was something that I was keen to create.”
Sophia is a project that’s been years in the making—13 years to be precise. He originally wrote the first draft over a decade ago when his daughter was just one year old. “Back then, I wasn’t ready,” he admits when asked why it took so long for him to bring it to screen. “I lacked the experience and the perspective I have now. But the world has changed, and so have I, so it felt like now was the right time to tell this story.”
While reticent to share much information about the film’s plot, he does concede that the film explores themes of identity and cultural crossover—subjects close to his heart. “When Arabs are portrayed in Western films, they’re often one-dimensional,” he says. “I want to change that. I want to tell stories that show the depth of our cultures and the universality of our experiences.”
“I LOVE WHERE I AM NOW, TELLING STORIES THAT SHOW THE DEPTH OF OUR CULTURE AND THE UNIVERSALITY OF OUR EXPERIENCE.”
Dhafer L’Abidine
Directing wasn’t a sudden shift for L’Abidine; it was a long-held ambition. “The truth is, I wanted to direct even before I became an actor,” he reveals. “When I first came to the UK, I looked into film schools, but they were too expensive. So I went into acting instead, thinking I’d find my way back to directing eventually.”
And find his way he did. His first two films served as both learning experiences and stepping stones to Sophia. “I believe in taking risks and following your passion,” he says. “You have to believe you can do it. If you fail, that’s okay. You learn and move on.”
A few months removed from Venice, we catch up on the phone. L’Abidine has been busy. After seven weeks of production and 36 days filming, he is in London for the final three days of shooting before Sophia is finally wrapped.
Before we get into it, we bring up the news that in an interview with the Associated Press earlier in the week, James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli, revealed that the next person cast to play 007 is to be “a man, likely in his 30s, and whiteness is not a given.”
With an eyebrow arched we pose the question whether he could see himself in one of cinema’s most iconic roles? We make a case on the evidence of the images taken in Venice, he certainly has all the credentials. “You know, years ago that might have been a dream,” he says with a laugh, “but I am very realistic person and I don’t see it in my future.”
We discuss that the idea of fronting a major franchise was once something that he thought about a lot, but the more he considered his future, the more he realized that he wanted to be the one telling the stories.
“I think it is important to be in control of your career,” he says. “I’ve worked quite deliberately to move my career away from just being a leading man into a space where I can also develop and tell the stories that I want to tell. If you sign up to be part of major international franchise, a lot of that freedom is taken off of you, and so that’s the trade-off. I honestly, I can’t say that I wouldn’t do it…but it’s about choosing projects that say something meaningful to me. I love doing what I am now, telling stories with an Arab flavour that are increasingly relevant to an international audience.”
That goal might not be as lofty as it perhaps seems. Playing alongside L’Abidine in Sophia is a big-name cast which includes Downton Abbey’s Jessica Brown Findlay, Alex Macqueen from Peaky Blinders and Australian actor Jonathan Hyde. “They were all so fantastic to work with, and they made my life much easier as a director,” he says. When again, we push on some insight to the plot he is quite guarded. “I don’t want to give much away! Essentially, it is about an estranged couple, where the mother who lives in London brings her daughter to Tunisia to see her partner and when she gets there… things happen” he trails off for dramatic effect.
While he prepares to wrap shooting and start the long editing process in January (“That’s where the movie really gets made”), what is evident with L’Abidine the filmmaker is that he is now doing things his way and, refreshingly, doesn’t care for others who try to talk him down. “I’m not thinking about the result. I don’t know if it will be successful or not, and honestly I don’t care. That’s not for me to decide. But what I can decide is to be truthful as much as I can to the story I am telling and to give it the best I have,” he says.
“Maybe before the fear of failure was a problem, but I don’t feel that any more. The problem is not pushing further to see where you can go.” L’Abidine’s mantra is that failure is a part of life. If you don’t fail at one thing, you will fail in something else—and that is where the learning is.
“That’s where you find what your limits are,” he continues. “I have a story and a vision that I wanted to tell, and if I don’t tell it, then no one else will because it’s my story. And really, I had to do it. Whatever the result, I had to stop talking and just get on with it.”
As a director, Dhafer L’Abidine may still struggle, as he did as a footballer and an young actor, but the difference is that now he never loses hope. He’s found out who he is, where he’s going, and how he’ll get there—or, to use a phrase of his, he does his own stunts.
Photography by Simon Lipman / Styling by Giovanni Beda / Grooming by Valeria Iovino / Stylist Assistance by Fernando Echeverria / Grooming Assistance by Gennaro Cifarelli / Local Production by Giorgia Argentieri / Senior Producer: Steff Hawker
Location: Hilton Molino Stucky, Venice