I regret working with Ahmad Helmi and making love scenes doesn’t mean that I’m an easy girl…
With her green eyes and dark hair, she embodies the sweet girl from next door with Lolita charms and a natural talent. She is the daughter of an Egyptian mother and an Austrian father, therefore the last name. With her 25 years she has quite a number of achievements in her track record as she started her career as a child in a TV show called “Yalla Beena” until various TV roles lead her to “El Basha Telmiz”. “I love acting but I didn’t want to specialize in it because it is not a stable career, and in my opinion talent is developed by practice rather than academic study” Mona adds.
You are a short films Diva. Tell us more about that.
First, I’m a big fan of short films and I love working in them, but I’m also very selective. The first film was “House of Flesh” by Ramy Abdul Jabbar, which was awarded in many National and International festivals. After that I acted in “Close Up” by Youssef Hisham and I was awarded as “Best Actress” from the French cultural centre. I also acted in “Nada’s Papers” by Saad Hendawy, “Sometimes” by Mahmoud Soliman and lately I’ve finished “Empty Frame” by Wessam Arafa. I’m really proud to act in these short films, they’re very artistic and daring as there’s no censorship and made by very good directors.
Is it true that working in short films is the reason why you didn’t make it as big as your female co-stars?
Not at all, it’s all about good work weather short or long films and I had my chance to work in the distinguished film “Seventh Heaven” by Saad Hendawy. Many of these actresses rushed for leading roles and the result was a great failure. I refused many leading roles because it’s not the time yet, besides, I’m very realistic as in knowing who would go to see a film only starring me? My steps are based on slowly but surely, (smiles).
Talking about “Seventh Heaven”, audiences were shocked by your daring performance in it, as it was so different from your innocent TV image. What’s do you say about that?
Yes, my role in this film was different than what audiences are used to see of me on TV. The strange thing was that critics who are supposed to be open minded and receptive to creativity regardless to their religious, political and social backgrounds, have attacked me without even discussing my role and made people hate me. I was stopped once on the street by some people who told me that they hate me after seeing me in this film, and I answered that they you can hate the role or the film character, but they don’t know me personally to hate me.
Maybe that happened because many of young actresses now refuse to do the love scenes…
(A little nervous) let me tell you what I think about that and you really have to write it down, to be an actress means being able to do all kinds of roles and doing whatever it takes for the character’s credibility. I do love scenes but that doesn’t mean that I’m easy or disrespected. I hate pretentious people because many of these actresses keep an innocent image for the audiences, but behind the scenes they’re doing what’s much worse and getting into filthy relations using their beauty to get what they want. Moreover, our great cinema icons like Soad Hosny, Nadia Lotfy and even Faten Hamama did love scenes in their films.
Which movie role you regret?
I regret working in “Zaki Shan”, most of my role was deleted and I don’t know why, so I’ll never work with Ahmed Helmi or Wael Ehsan again.
You have a tensed relation with the media, why?
Not with the media but with journalists because most of them are not honest. I prefer to give TV interviews, so people see me talking directly. I think that too much publicity is not a good thing and an actor’s real personality should be hidden a little, so that way the viewers believe his films characters.
Are you working on any new movies?
I’m working in Osama Fawzy new film “Youssef & the Ghosts” and I’ve just finished shooting in a movie called “Fe Lamh el Basar” (“In a Glimpse”) starring Hussein Fahmy and Ahmed Hatem and directed by newcomer Youssef Hisham. My role is “Shahy” the mysterious girl and I think people will be shocked again (laughing).
Congratulations for your engagement. What’s the story?
Everybody now knows that I’m engaged to the composer and singer Adel Hakki after a very fast love story. It happened after three seconds only (smiling). After four months we met on Facebook, and then we’ve met personally and finally got engaged in a family ceremony.
Do you know what women want?
Women want a real gentleman, who loves, respects, protects, understands and supports the woman, only a real man can provide that, but unfortunately he’s very hard to find. (At that point Adel Hakki stepped into the room and Mona pointed at him smiling: here’s my Gentleman.)
