by Sherif Awad
I am the fourth and last child/daughter of my family: my mom was an athlete and my father was a doctor, poet and painter. My mother passed on to me her love for sport, my father for arts. Both instilled in me attention to health and body. I was very little when I started to feel interested in the arts/entertainment. I used to sing on a portable turntable when I was 3 years old and when I was 12, I wrote poems about the Gulf War. After seeing “Flashdance” movie for the first time, when I was five years-old, all I did was dance for hours to the rhythm of song “What a Feeling” with my friend Zaira, dreaming to became a great dancer. I used to steal my sister’s dance shoes and “tutu”…and go! I thought I was going to be a dancer, but I became an athlete and I ran as a sprinter on the Youth National Team. Great experience! Growing up, when I was teenager, a beautiful Pupi Avati’s movie (Regalo di Natale) was very important to me. I love so much this director.
-My creativity is very connected to my pain. Pain is a powerful engine, pain sharpens our sensitivity. In my opinion the artist is an alchemist who lets emotions live in himself and who can turn pain into a flower. I studied the Chubbuck Technique in Rome and I think it’s a method that all actors should learn.
-I’m never satisfied where I am. My life is a continuous research and I feel I have much to say to the world. I’d like to use popularity to help people, to spread a very important message. I’d like, one day, to dedicate an important award to my brother who died two years ago, because I live for him too. In my life I love to be a woman, it’s not a burden to me and, in my path, I always met very special men.
– In Italian cinema we have always the same actors… it’s very very boring. In 2018, during “David di Donatello” ceremony, the actor Renato Carpentieri (75, at his first prize!) in his speech said “risk is sometimes good… there are a lot of good actors…”, as an exhortation to Italian directors to take more risk working with less famous – but good – actors. We need new faces, new souls.
-My approach for new roles is generally full of enthusiasm. For me, every job is an opportunity to express a nuance of myself, of my uniqueness. My first thought is “which experience can I draw on?” and it’s magic…
-There is a perfect equilibrium between my private life and work; my gorgeous husband Paolo totally supports me on this path. There is a sacred respect between us about our professions and passions. In difficult moments he says to me “Don’t give up because you’re great and the talent and opportunity of life will surely meet!”
-In this time my answer is in the words of F.Perls (psychotherapist known for his notable works on Gestalt therapy): “if we are willing to be at the center of our world and not have the center in our personal computer or somewhere else, but really in the center, then we become ambidextrous…then we see the two poles of every event. We see that light cannot exist without non-light. If there was identity you could no longer be aware. If there was always light, you would no longer experience light. It is necessary that there is a rhythm of light and darkness…” In any case, my heart and thoughts are with the families of the victims…
-I’m involved in two important projects but at the moment everything is suspended. We shall hope for the best!
