If you follow us on our socials (if not, we’re offended), you’d know that we’re on tour at the El Gouna Film Festival to bring you the best and exclusive content from the event.
This time, we sat down with the lovely Amira Adeeb to get to know about the behind-the-scenes of what it takes to be a digital creator *and* actress:
Cosmo ME: Could you tell us about how you kick-started your career?
Amira Adeeb: I’ve been making videos ever since I was a child. I used to get my friends over and we’d recreate popular videos. And I used to shoot and edit them and that became my source of fun. Now that I think about it, I can see the correlation between my younger self and me now, because my job is making videos and acting. So ever since I was a child, I wanted to be an actress. That was my goal.
C: How did you plan on transitioning from content creator to actress?
A: For some people, it’s very hard to be seen as an actress because they’re always seen as an influencer, so it’s hard for people to see them as something else.
Luckily from the beginning of my journey, I was very vocal about my end game here. I studied television, film, and media. I talk about movies and films on my Instagram, I share my opinions on shows. So, everyone already knew that I wanted to be in this industry. That was my game plan.
C: How did you motivate yourself to fulfill your dream life?
A: I believe in the law of attraction 100%. I believe that if you think positively, you will get positive things. Do I, however, think that you should just manifest and wait for it to happen? No, you must also put in the work. You can’t just sit on a couch and expect to be a successful actress. You need to put yourself out there, go to auditions and tell the universe that you’re putting in the work.
I believe that everything in my life now was manifested. My job, my relationship, my life.
C: How does it feel to be a self-made actress even after coming from a family that is part of the industry?
A: My mom’s an actress and my dad’s a director and they’ve been in this industry for a long time. So I grew up in this family where everyone around me was surrounded by art, so that’s what I wanted to do when I was young. But when I started vocalizing to my parents that I wanted to act, they were strictly against it. They’ve seen a lot being in this industry. Acting is a freelance job and like any freelance job, there is no security.
My mom told me that if I wanted to become an actress, I would have to do it myself – she told me she’d never make any calls for me. And from there I was like, all right, cool.
I’m happy they did that because I’m proud of the fact that I did it alone.
C: How did you start building your social media following from scratch?
A: If you want to build a following on social media, the most important thing is to be authentic and to be responsible. If people trusted you enough to follow you and to listen to you, you must be careful about what you say. And never, ever let the number get into your head because at the end of the day, it’s just a job, you’re no better than anyone else.
C: Could you tell us about your first viral video and how did it feel?
A: The first video of mine to go viral got around 12 million views. When it went viral, I received a lot of hate and a lot of love. But the hate was overwhelming because I was not used to it. I started crying and I told my mom I wanted to delete the video. It was so overwhelming, and I was so scared, but then three days later, everything started calming down and I started thinking of everything logically instead of emotionally. And I was like, wow, this is a great opportunity. And from there, I just continued making videos.
Check out the TikTok video we created with the star…
@cosmopolitanme But you’re, like, really pretty…@Amiraadeeb 💘 👀 ##fyp ##elgounafilmfestival ##elgouna ##meangirls ##amiraadeeb
Watch this space for more El Gouna Film Festival updates.
Interview and transcription by Yasmin Reda and Twinkle Stanly.