Amir El-Masry, ‘Limbo’ Star, on Representation for U.K. Arab Actors & Controlling His Narrative

British actor Amir El-Masry has been ubiquitous on international screens in the last five years, but like most Arab actors in the U.K., he’s reached his threshold for backward stereotypes, and is trying to forge his own narrative in the industry.Born in Egypt but raised in the U.K., El-Masry, who leads Ben Sharrock’s refugee drama and festival darling “Limbo,” graduated from the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (Lamda) in 2013 to an industry whose reckoning around race and representation was still years away.“When I started out, I never thought I was ‘Other,’ I never thought I was different.

But when I came out of Lamda, I quickly realized that the industry differentiates you, and makes you look at yourself and go, ‘Actually, you know what? Even if I wanted to play James Bond, I can’t play him,’” the 30-year-old actor tells Variety,

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