Egyptian actress Yusra has a record of breaking with tradition, and her latest daring films are no exception. These days, she is shifting to a singing career and performing in a love story with an actor who is several years her junior.
“After the great hue and cry caused by the TV series Awan Al Ward (Time of Roses) last Ramadan, I had to look for a cinema story that suited me. I have chosen Ahmed Al Saqqa to costar along with me in the film, which depicts a love story between a mature woman and a young man younger than she is. It is a relationship full of human feelings, nobility and pride, but not necessarily with sex, because the woman has eliminated such relations from her life,” Yusra told the Arabic daily Al Raya.
“There is another film scripted for me by Hala Sarhan about a socially confused businesswoman who claims madness while she is normal," she added. "Sarhan has wrapped up 40 scenes and I am following up with her to finish it all.”
Regarding her film Al Asefah (Thunderstorm), which won many prizes at the Egyptian National Film Festival, Yusra said: “I admit that I paused long in the nude scene, which I was opposed to. But the director, Khaled Yousef, insisted on it due to the character’s feeling of deprivation, her new passion and in view of the fact that the society had stripped her of everything. When I performed the scene I really felt that the need for the true pulse of life and the right to enjoy everything, despite her shyness about nudity.”
Yusra also cleared up reports about her singing career, saying that “when I was young, I studied ballet with music and I was fond of Laila Murad, who was a close friend of my grandmother. I used to visit Murad daily, but I couldn’t reach her standard in terms of singing in the movies. I am not a singer. I am just a performer of words and music, which I like. My album came about accidentally, when I discovered that I had sung seven songs in films such as Dantella. So I asked composer Hamid Al Shae’ri to give me three new songs to be added to the seven in order to release the album, which was an additional artistic experience for me.” - Albawaba.com
