Talking on Zoom from Los Angeles, Omar Jr describes the “weight of expectation” that comes with his famous name: “People looked at me and spoke to me, but I think they saw him to some degree.
“When I went to Jewish school in Montreal, the first question my teachers would ask on the first day of school was: ‘Your grandfather made Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand. Tell us about Barbra.’ I was like, wow, how about I tell you about myself first.”
Omar is still trying to tell us about himself first. The memoir he published last year, A Tale of Two Omars, opens with a moving account of his namesake grandfather’s disappearance into the haze of Alzheimer’s, before describing his own life of rare adventure, privilege and soul-searching.
A Tale of Two Omars: Sharif Snr and Jnr (Photo: Instagram)
The repeated juxtaposition throughout is Omar Jr enduring countless unenviable tribulations and crises of identity against the enviable backdrop of luxury attached to his iconic relative.
“People assume that I grew up privileged,” he says. “They don’t know that we all have our own internal struggles and sacrifices that we make. The other half of my life was growing up in a lower-middle class family in Montreal, Québec, grandchild of Holocaust survivors, where we were rich in family love and not much else.”
But there are far more than just the two most visible Omars. His multiple identities range from actor to socialite to political advocate. Part Canadian, part Egyptian, with a Jewish mother and a Muslim father, he grew up and studied in Montreal, Cairo, Paris and London. Now he lives in LA, but regularly travels to and from the Gulf, South America, Europe and the Middle East, pursuing multiple careers. With all these identities, how would he describe himself? “You’ve sort of found my number one problem,” he says with a smile.
“I’ve never really been able to clearly articulate or define that, and I think I finally realised that I don’t have to. All of these competing identities that I thought I had to prioritise when explaining who I was to people, aren’t competing — they’re complementary.”
Omar sees himself as “Jewish, Muslim, Canadian, Egyptian,” but says of being Jewish or Muslim it’s more a cultural than religious identity: “I’m not sure that I subscribe to any particular religion on its own, but definitely culturally I’ve inherited certain traits and beliefs from my family that were passed down.”
As an actor, he has just appeared in series three of Israel’s popular TV comedy, The Baker and the Beauty, filming in Israel during lockdown. He started as a model in Egypt, appearing in Coca-Cola and Calvin Klein ads, before moving to acting. He has been in films alongside his grandfather, and solo. He was also a spokesperson for LGBTQ organisation GLAAD after coming out in an article he wrote for a gay magazine. Somewhere along the way, he studied for a Masters at the London School of Economics.
There have been dark moments. His book tells how he was raped by a wealthy sheikh he worked for — he felt unable to report it to the authorities in Egypt — and how he was sexually assaulted at the Oscars in 2011, when he appeared as the first ever male award presenter. Then there was the painful emotion of his mother’s cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Are there more Omars to come? “I’m considering running to be a member of parliament in Canada,” he replies. I don’t think he was joking. Now he’s developing a TV series with a major studio in America, drawing on his life.
For all the glitz of his family and name, he comes across as considered, humble, even a little shy. He speaks slowly, thinking carefully about his answers as if searching for the perfect balance between honesty and diplomacy. In a way, he’s already a politician.
Omar Sharif Jnr on the red carper (Photo: Getty Images)
His breakthrough moment came in 2012, when he wrote for American LGBT magazine The Advocate and came out not only as gay but also as partly Jewish, asking: “Will being Egyptian, half Jewish, and gay forever remain mutually exclusive identities? Are they identities to be hidden?” He was asking this of himself as much as of others. “We all have our own closet,” he says. “So many people have closets that it’s not just an LGBTQ issue.”
He seems self-conscious about the authenticity of any one of his many constituent parts: “I don’t think I’m the best person to take up the fight or to represent the struggles of most LGBTQ Arabs, because my story is unique and because I grew up very privileged.
“But as circumstances had it, that was just sort of what was thrust upon me by happenstance. No one else seems to be taking up that conversation. It’s definitely an issue that needs to be spoken about, so while no one else is doing it, I guess I’m going to keep it up.”
All the Omars have been “geared towards the same outcome and goal” he says. “Whether it’s the shows that I’ve appeared on, whether it was what I studied, or whether it was working as an LGBTQ activist, everything I’ve done was geared towards the broader goal of creating more empathy in the world. I don’t know that you have to pick and choose. You could just say, ‘Yes, and...’ Just always do more if you can.”
Does he worry about his identities limiting future acting roles? And what about straight actors playing gay characters, or non-Jews playing Jews?
“I came out pretty strongly against Jack Whitehall playing Disney’s first LGBTQ character in Jungle Cruise.
“Then I spoke with one of the producers and he made a very good point, which is in a job interview, you can’t ask people if they’re gay or not, what their sexuality is or their religion.”
Nonetheless, he says Hollywood doesn’t operate “an open and fair casting process” so gay actors should have the chance to play gay roles. “Hopefully, we’ll get to this point whereby it’s the best actor that gets the role, but I don’t think we’re there yet.”
Omar’s intelligence and thoughtfulness belie the pretty-boy image in his official photos and Instagram feed. He’s clearly a man who thinks a lot about the world he lives in and how he can survive it, navigate through it and even change it for the better.
Is he lonely? Though it appears he fits in with ease more or less everywhere he goes, he never truly sounds fully at home.
“Yeah, I feel alone a lot of the time,” he confesses. “I feel like a nomad. I feel like I’m always wandering. Especially after coming out and not being able to go back to Egypt, and not having my family anchored in one place. I felt I was always hiding parts of myself, hiding aspects of myself. Trying to get to know people, I always felt I had to hold back and not put my full self in there. That’s why I’m hoping this book is going to prove very cathartic, because now it’s all in there.”
Having seen early on the power fame and celebrity bring, he learnt from his grandfather how to use them for good, for causes he believes in. From his Jewish side he knows too well the cost of intolerance. But unlike many actors peddling fashionable causes, Omar speaks from personal experience, with enough intellect to arrive at a considered, pragmatic position.
His book helped him make peace with all the Omars. Now he’s ready to emerge from the shadow of that name. Who knows? Maybe one day he can drop the “junior”.
He shares the name of his famous grandfather - but this actor, model and activist has many roles of his own
