Hend Sabry breaks down her 30-year career, from Finding Ola to Four Daughters and more

Egyptian-Tunisian star speaks to The National about her diverse body of work

Few actors in the Arabic-speaking world cross between mainstream entertainment and arthouse cinema as deftly as Hend Sabry.

Earlier this year, the chameleonic performer sat prominently at the Academy Awards for Kaouther Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated documentary-drama hybrid Four Daughters. She starred opposite the real-life woman she portrayed in the non-fiction film, re-enacting the most painful moments of her subject’s past.

She’s since followed that up in an acclaimed Arabic adaptation of The Good Wife entitled Moftaraq Taroq, and this month returns to the Netflix hit Finding Ola, the second season of which is now streaming globally. In the latter, she revisits a character she first made famous in the 2010 series Ayza Agawez – akin to Sarah Jessica Parker returning to Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw for the HBO/OSN hit … And Just Like That.

And yes, even Sabry herself has trouble reconciling the range of her artistic pursuits. “If you think of Finding Ola, and you think of my contribution to Four Daughters, you wouldn’t believe that these are the same actress making those decisions,” she says. “But I think that’s what specific to me – I don’t walk one single path. I take many roads at the same time, and I don’t think about where it leads me. I just think, ‘I’m going to enjoy this road. I’m along for the ride.’

“I’m super proud of what I’ve done, and I’m proud of the fact that it did not annihilate me in the process, because I saw that happen with other people.”

It takes a certain confidence to take on the diversity of projects that Sabry, 44, has long managed, not to mention the difficult and demanding roles she’s regularly spun into virtuoso performances. She often wonders herself: Where did that confidence come from?

It certainly wasn’t yet fully formed 30 years ago, when Sabry’s career began with the boundary-pushing Tunisian film The Silences of the Palace. Written and directed by Moufida Tlatli, it is a provocative feminist marvel and now a key text in Arabic film studies courses decades after it won awards at both Cannes and Toronto.

In making Finding Ola, Sabry kept thinking back to that experience again and again. She was 13 years old when she auditioned for the lead role, having no idea the career she had ahead of her. “I can still see myself back then – I can see that little girl coming to set with those huge lights everywhere and under the spotlight herself, being scrutinised. It’s not easy,” Sabry says. “That was my first time at casting. It was very traumatic for me – it’s traumatic no matter what at that age, I think.”

Part of what got Sabry through that experience, and part of what shaped her, was having a visionary female filmmaker in Tlalti to guide her through it. “I’ve always had these tremendously talented female mentors from a very young age. Even up to now, I’m able to learn from Kaouther [Ben Hania], who is an extraordinary filmmaker,” says Sabry.

“I’m very lucky to have come from a place like Tunisia, where there is real auteur cinema, and I’m also lucky to have then come to a place such as Egypt, which gave me a love for both types of filmmaking – the commercial at one and the artistic on the other. It taught me how to juggle.”

But there is a through line in her work. Whether it’s a blockbuster or a festival darling, Sabry’s performances are always rooted in the exploration of the multifaceted experience of being an Arab woman. That is why Sabry wanted to return to Ola, and why it marked her first producing credit.

“Ola, I think, was my most strategic move, and why I approached Netflix about bringing her back,” Sabry says. “In my mind, she is the quintessence of a young Arab woman. Every character I take begins there, but there’s something so malleable in Ola. You can take her anywhere you want, and people will follow. Ola breaks the fourth wall. Because of that, she has an intimate, unique kind of relationship with the audience. She unites people from Tunis to Jeddah.”

Initially, Sabry was thinking about returning to Ola first and foremost as an actor. But as her leadership role in the project progressed, she found herself unconsciously embracing the role of mentor, particularly when she saw young actresses Aicel Ramzy and Yasmina El-Abd under the same bright lights of the audition process she once found herself under for Silences of the Palace.

“All I could do was look at them and tell them it’s going to be OK,” Sabry says. “I feel like I’m their mom on set. I have this maternal feeling at all times. Even when I get mad at something on set, I start apologising to them because I don’t want them to feel like it’s against them. I want to make them feel safe.”

And in kind, Sabry has found herself learning from both Ramzy and El-Abd, who have both taught her about what it means to be a young Arab woman of Gen Z and Gen Alpha. This is of particular interest for Sabry not only as a performer, but as a mother, as she raises teen daughters of her own.

“They’re teaching me so much about how their brain works, what they watch, what they have on their phones,” says Sabry. “I’m learning all the time from them. I go back home and tell my children everything I learnt from them.

“And what’s funny is, after my daughters watched season one of Finding Ola, Aicel and Yasmina are now the real stars of our household. And Yasmine hangs out with my daughter – they call each other all the time, and my daughter talks about her constantly. But that's fine with me. You’re never the star when you’re the mum.”

Finding Ola season two is now streaming on Netflix