Omar Sharif Jr. admitted to The Jewish Chronicle in a candid interview that his famous name carries with it a “weight of expectation.” One thing he learned from his grandfather Omar Sharif, he said, was how to use his fame to support causes that are near to his heart. Sharif Jr. has been the spokesperson for the LGBTQ organization GLAAD, since he came out in 2013. He was the first in the Arab world to do so publicly, according to IMDb, and he has faced threats of violence because of it. He was also barred from entering Egypt, according to The Jewish Chronicle. Sharif Jr. told the publication, “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.”
Still, Sharif Jr. carries on the work of being an activist and an actor, drawing his life and his many projects together with a common thread. He said, “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.”
