From a drug addict in Taht El Saytara to an intelligent hacker in Haza Al Masaa and more, the light-hearted Mohamed Farag never failed to make us repeatedly fall in love with every single one of his devilish roles! This Ramadan, he’s back at it as a serial killer with the season’s hit series Qabeel. The series follows a police officer’s investigation of mystery murders in a thrilling and mysterious atmosphere. We’ve met with the incredible actor to tell us more about his post production insights and here’s what he told us!
1.Why did you decide to take part in Qabeel as Adam?
I was about to skip this season in Ramadan altogether. I was scared. I did not want to do just anything, I don’t like to be present just for the sake of being present. When I work on something, I always like to leave my print, enjoy the project and entertain the people too. Thank God, I was offered Qabeel. From the very beginning I liked it since both Mohamed Mamdouh and Amina Khalil are on the project, with Director Karim El Shenawy and MBC.
2.How do you feel about your character as you watch it now?
This is from the very first times for me to feel satisfied, I’m not happy with my performance 100% since sometimes it was exhausting to shoot while fasting, but I honestly felt some artistic maturation. I’m usually very picky with my roles, and I can change my decisions last minute because I don’t like to repeat myself. Yet, I was very excited about this character because it’s new, the hardest thing about Adam’s character was to portray his hidden mental illness.
3. A recurring theme in the series is domestic abuse with the stories of the patients, since you played the therapist listening to women’s stories about it, why do you think the issue is still prominent until this very day?
Backwardness! It’s prominent everywhere, but we have a huge percentage here in our community. It’s horrible the idea that men hit their women. Unfortunately, a lot of women suffer from this, and what hurts the most is the fact that they sometimes stay for the sake of their children or not knowing where to go.
4.There was this scene when you go back to your cheating wife, and sort of point fingers on whose fault it is. Why do you think people cheat?
Human nature is not really sane. If people aren’t self-conscious or in control of themselves, they can really do all sorts of terrible things. With Adam, he was waiting for a mistake. Once he was cheated on, all hell broke loose.
5.After all this, do you think you have anything in common with Adam?
I hope not! I don’t think we’re similar. I’m hot tempered, Adam’s very calm. He can have volcanoes inside his head, but appear normal. You never know what’s inside his head. He also likes to manipulate people, and I’m not like that at all.
6.The crew is almost all young creative artists, including the Director Karim El Shenawy, how do you think this helped the series?
We all belong to the same generation more or less, including the crew behind the camera, even the elder generations have this young spirit. It enabled us to understand each other perfectly, and receive and deliver the information smoothly. We were all happy with each other, and excited about the project. Location Manager Ahmad Gabr produced great great pictures!
7.What do you think is the message of Qabeel to the audience?
There are a lot of issues tackled in the series, like the influence of lack of family attachments, peer influence, marriage, Facebook crimes, and so on.
8.What do you think of women’s role in Cinema and TV in general, and in Qabeel in specific?
Lately, we started seeing more female presence, but it’s still not enough. In front of each 10 male actors, we get 2-3 female actresses. There’s this unbalance between men and women in the industry.