5 years ago we met with Nesreen Amin after her role in Ehky Ya Scheherazade, directed by Yousri Nasrallah. Today, Nesreen Amin has transformed to Zeinat ‘elly betzawa2 elbanat’, who blew us away last Ramadan. This is not uncommon for the young actress, although she has only been on screen for the past five years. Nesreen has been choosing one influential role after the other, and nailing every one of them.
Nesreen considers herself lucky to have started out with great cinematic calibers, “I thank God for this. I started out working on Ehky Ya Scheherazade with Wahid Hamed and Yousri Nasrallah. This is something some people work 20 years to achieve”, she tells. “It made me very careful not to accept every role I get offered. That’s why I waited a long time until I was offered Zat and Sharbaat Loz”, she adds.
Back in 2009, Nesreen told us that she’d love to work with Kamla Abu Zekry. She has done that twice so far, “Working with her is extremely exhausting, but the outcome is great. And because the result is so good, you endure how exhausting the work is’, she explains, “What made me fall in love with cinema weren’t the actors, but the directors. They made me love the film industry and want to work in it.”
For the first time in Egyptian TV, people got so emotionally connected with a prostitute character, and thumbs up to Nesreen for that, “I loved her, and that’s why I studied her very well. I also studied her well because everyone working on Segn El Nesa was putting their best efforts. It would’ve been very embarrassing if I’d slacked off”, she says.
Segn El Nessa was painful to watch at some points due to the extreme injustice and tragic endings for all the characters. However, the series doesn’t fully portray reality, “Reality is a lot worse. The series’ story and characters are very realistic, but a series will never show you reality just as it is. It has got to tone it down a little”, she says.
Through her character research for Zeinat, Nesreen watched documentary films like ‘El Banat Dol’, a documentary by Tahany Rashed. It follows the tracks of street girls living on the streets of Cairo, “Kamla told me about this film so I could research for my audition. She loved that character, so she was worried about who will take the role”, she explains.
The character development had to be carefully studied, “When preparing for the first part of the role – the comedy part – we got the help of a comedienne. Her name is Shaimaa Seif and she works with Moga Comedy. This was under Kamla’s supervision. She asked me to sit with her so she would give me pointers and add little funny phrases”, Nesreen says, “and at the time when Zeinat got ill, we consulted a doctor. We wanted to know what someone with kidney issues would look like”.
As a single mom who is working in showbiz, Nesreen sometimes finds it really hectic to balance work and personal life, “Acting is stressful for everyone, but it’s more stressful for a single mom. I live with my parents and they take care of my daughter. Without them I wouldn’t have been able to do what I’m doing” she tells.