Since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted to become an actor. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s because I liked people’s attention or perhaps I just thought that being loved by strangers and followed by paparazzi was cool. In all honesty, I still don’t really know what the exact reason was, but I know one thing: I wanted to be in front of the camera, never behind it.
Right now, as I’m writing this, I’m at the eighth edition of the El Gouna Film Festival, surrounded by some of the region’s and world’s most talented actors and directors. Everyone here is trying to prove something— that they belong, that they deserve to be seen. And me? Well, the closest I’ve come to acting, or even just a whiff of it, is a two-second cameo in a Tawsen music video.
It happened in May, when MILLE tagged along to a few of the Moroccan singer’s shoots in Casablanca while he was planning his next string of releases. You know the drill: long days, short nights, we’re running left and right, surviving almost exclusively on caffeine and sandwiches. I was just supposed to be there to observe, to take some photos, jot down some notes, and maybe grab a quote or two.
By now, you’re probably thinking: “Alright Yassine, you got a taste of the life of a singer, not an actor”— but hang on: this is where my time to shine came in. It was one of those afternoons where everyone’s fried. The lights are blinding, the music’s on loop— driving all of us bananas— cables everywhere, people shouting directions, and I’m just there, trying to look useful while questioning every career choice I’ve ever made up to that point.
My camera battery is almost dead, my notes barely make sense, and everyone’s too busy to even breathe, so I step outside for some fresh air, grab a curb, and sit on it. There and then, I started talking to the person sitting right next to me. His name was Bayadis, a producer-slash-dentist I’d just met and instantly started vibing with. We were mid-conversation about music, the region, and who’s the hottest act of the moment, when someone bursts out yelling, “We need an extra!”
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Pictures courtesy of @tonio_art.
No need to say anything more. I walk in, chest out, heart racing, mentally rehearsing fake lines that don’t even exist and that no one was planning on giving me anyways. The director, completely stressed out, just looks at me and goes, “Lay there. Don’t move.” For context, I’m in a room wrapped in checkered market bags, confused as to how they settled on that specific aesthetic but rolled with because a) who am I to judge? b) this is not my music video and c) I’m just happy to finally be part of a shoot of some kind, even if I have no idea what’s going on or why it looks like I’m in a storage room.
Pictures courtesy of @tonio_art.
And so I lay like no one else has laid down before, giving everything I’ve got from the posture to the stare, and of course, the pout. Silent and trying my best to be serious, on the first take, someone messes up. Second take, the same thing happens. By the third, we finally nailed it. I’m walking down the riad’s stairs like I just finished shooting Oppenheimer, smiling from ear to ear, half-expecting to be stopped for a selfie or maybe even to be handed a contract on the spot. In my head, I’m already rehearsing interviews, talking about “my journey” and “trusting the process,” completely forgetting that I didn’t even have a line to say.
I find Bayadis again and start telling him all about it. How the camera panned to me, how I locked eyes with it. This was it. My debut. My first real acting credit.
That’s until I hear someone scream my name again. Apparently, the scene we just shot had an issue of some sort too and had to be done again. And the one they were actually happy with? I wasn’t even in it— I was downstairs bragging about my appearance while literally messing everything up. I rushed back upstairs, everyone’s giving me the bad eye. We shoot one last time, and that’s it. I can finally leave, feeling weirdly proud, excited, and a little embarrassed.
The video just dropped, and by now you’re probably dying (not) to watch me do my thing in it. My scene? Two seconds. Blink and you’ll miss it. But honestly? They kept it. And that’s enough for me— and for my next fling, who I’ll try to impress by telling them that I was this close to making it big in Hollywood before the evil eye got in the way.
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