Yasmina El-Abd speaks with the practiced clarity of a veteran actor, with an encyclopedic knowledge of film that far supersedes her age. She speaks three languages (English, French and Arabic). She does ballet. She sings. She’s hosted a TV show. She’s released three music videos— each with millions of views. She has a show on Netflix, and one on HBO MAX. Her upcoming project is alongside one of the biggest actors of the 21st century. Oh, and she’s not even 18 yet.
“You hear a lot of things about ‘the industry’, and everybody knows it’s not the safest environment for a child. But I did ballet as a kid, and knew that I loved performing, so I knew I had to convince my parents to let me go for it,” says Yasmina El-Abd
When she first started applying for roles in commercials, her mother insisted she only perform in Arabic, but not in an Egyptian dialect —to which she is more accustomed—but rather Khaleeji, which she admits was a challenge, but it never deterred her. “I was never tired, never bored. It just immediately clicked,” she says about relearning the language’s nuances.
“Just because I am Arab, doesn’t mean every character I play has to be defined by Arab culture. She could just be a normal character who just happens to look that way.”
– Yasmina El-Abd
She booked her first short film at eleven years old titled The Shadow of Cairo, about a girl fighting sexual harassment on the streets of Egypt. Despite it being her first gig, it caught the eye of the international festival circuit, specifically, the acclaimed New York International Children’s Film Festival.
Her first major film role came shortly after in Daughters of Abdul-Rahman, but the part had been written for a fifteen-year-old, and El-Abd was only twelve. Admittedly, she’s always looked young for her age. But she sent in a self-tape anyway, booked the gig, and the film ended up winning the audience award at the Cairo film festival.
She played Egyptian princess Safiya in HBO Max’s Theodosia, based on the best
selling book series of the same name. And it didn’t take long until little girls were stopping
her in the street, hollering, “Look, it’s Princess Safiya!” Growing up, there weren’t many characters who looked like her on TV.
The success of Theodosia didn’t merely open doors, but rather kicked them down, leading to her upcoming project, Karantina, where she’ll star alongside Hollywood A-lister James Franco and former Esquire Saudi coverstar Yaquob Al-Farhan. She plays a violin prodigy whose only escape from a life of hardship is through music. One can’t help but draw comparisons to River Phoenix’s Oscar-nominated role in Running on Empty, about a musical prodigy in dire circumstances, which the late actor, too, played at only 17 years old.
Despite success aplenty, she remains remarkably savvy to the direction she wants her career to evolve into. “Just because I am Arab, doesn’t mean every character I play has to be defined by Arab culture. She could just be a normal character who just happens to look that way.”
With a schedule that is only speeding up, and projects scheduled across the globe, as if that weren’t enough, she’s also recently become an ambassador for Safe Egypt, an organisation that advocates for mental health, women’s and child’s rights. If she decides to go full Orson Welles and direct her own masterpiece at age 25, one couldn’t help but feel unsurprised. But, naturally, we had to get the most important question across.
Favourite movie(s)? “LaLa Land, Spielberg’s Westside Story, Lawrence of Arabia, Sabrina and Breakfast at Tiffany’s—I love Audrey Hepburn. When I was filming Theodosia in Belgium, I would walk past her birth place every day, which was very trippy, and very inspirational.”
