9 QUESTIONS FOR
ASHRAF EJBAIR
- Set up -
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Are you religious? Any sort of spirituality or anything?
Ashraf: No I wouldn't say I'm religious. I definitely think that I have a more spiritual side than a religious side. I believe in energy. I do believe in, you know, the sort of energy that you put out into the world and what you get back and also a sort of healing energies that exist around us.
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What would your hell look like if you had to think of one?
A: I think my hell would definitely be a place of a lot of repetition or of nothingness. Maybe like floating in water. I also think the whole fire burning is a pretty good representation of hell. Yes - definitely some kind of a Groundhog Day of awful things that just keep happening with no end and no sort of idea of where you are and what is happening.
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If you had to choose two people to be stuck in hell with, who would it be?
A: Okay so one of them would be Flora because I feel like we have endless amounts to talk about at any point so she could probably make any situation feel better. And then I'll go with Rihanna for my second choice.
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The 9 Circles
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1 - Acting for film or for theatre any preference?
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A: Acting for theatre is just more fun because you do all the work and you work within a company. You work together, you make something together and then you do it each night and you receive whatever responses you get from the audience. It feels more sort of ritualistic and human than acting for film.
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2 - What's the worst part about being an actor?
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A: The worst part is not working part because you spend a lot of time keeping available and in some ways you feel as though you're not free to do a lot of other things or you are not progressing in life. So I think definitely the lifestyle around acting is the most difficult thing to live with.
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3 - What’s the best thing, the best part about being an actor?
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A: The best part about being an actor is getting to sort of play and experience and feel so many different things of History. It’s being on stage. That’s the best feeling you can get — being on stage and being completely comfortable and sharing someone's story.
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4 - Have you ever played someone of the opposite
gender and what was that like?
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A: I did once play a trans woman in a play and the experience was… you know the actual process of getting ready every day was really useful because you could just change yourself and look in the mirror and see a completely different person. I guess apart from that, you know, it was a very eye-opening job to do because it really sort of made me address all these questions about gender and society. Apart from that, the character wasn't actually too different from playing other characters because everyone's still the same at the core.
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5 - When did you first know that you wanted to be an actor?
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A: it was actually after I'd done my first year at uni and I was working in like some kind of waitering position. I remember thinking ‘Ah! At least I only have to do this for the summer!’ And then, I was thinking 'Well what would I actually want to for ever or for a long time.' It was really just acting. So yeah I really figured it out when I was working at Lord's Cricket Ground that summer.
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6 - What is the first show you ever did?
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A: Do you mean professionally or just ever?
NGY: Well, you can give us ever ever and professionally.
A: Okay so, ever ever, I remember when I was a kid in school we did a production of Macbeth and because we were in school we didn't do the actual words but I remember I was one of the witches and we had like a rap to a sort of a cauldron bubbling (laughs) … potion … recipe.
NGY: And what about your first professional gig then?
A: My first professional gig was in a production of the Duchess of Malfi and it was with this great company called Eyestrings. We did the show — it was like a revival which I had been brought on to be part of — so we had two weeks of rehearsals and then we went up at Southwark Playhouse and then toured around England. It was incredible it was with such a great cast and a brilliant director so I learned a ton doing that.
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7 - And what is something that you know now that
you wish you knew when you first started as an actor
— as a professional actor?
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A: As a professional actor I think… okay so — the main thing that I think now is that as an actor to really be happy and fulfilled you need to have something outside of acting like a skill or something that can actually pay — that you are also building at the same time. And so that's the advice I would give to people who are just starting out. To have acting and focus on that but to also have something completely separate that you're also building that you can maintain yourself.
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8 - What role would you love to play that you haven't played yet?
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A: I think I would have to say Richard II because I think it's it's got such incredible moments. I think it's a really astounding play for its time and for any time really. I'd just love to have the opportunity to play him.
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9 - Any self-promotion on show that you're doing
at the moment or anything coming up for you?
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A: I have some filming going on in January on a short little film but also I am working with my company bittersweet. We make multi-sensory concerts and we have a new show that we're developing in January and we're going to be doing a tour to a few cities in the UK in springtime 2018.