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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Sixties heartthrob Omar Sharif reflects on a life of wine, women and gambling; discusses his new film, "Monsieur Ibrahim"; and explains why God was unfair in making him so handsome.
Dec 8, 2003 | In François Dupeyron's cinematic confection "Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran," Omar Sharif plays an old Muslim shopkeeper in 1960s Paris who dispenses sweet nuggets of wisdom to a young Jewish boy slightly lonelier and much, much sadder than he. (The film, in French with English subtitles, is now playing in New York and Los Angeles and thus will be eligible for the 2003 Oscars; a modest national rollout is due next month.)
"Smiling is what makes you happy," Sharif's M. Ibrahim tells young Momo, tenderly played by Pierre Boulanger, who drinks in his advice like nectar. "Try it, you'll see."
Sharif himself takes a similar don't-worry-be-happy view of life. Now 71, the roguishly handsome Egyptian actor, who dominated the box office in the early 1960s with hits like "Lawrence of Arabia," "Doctor Zhivago" and "Funny Girl," is looking back on a life lived passionately -- drinking good wines, dining on rich foods, romancing beautiful women, traveling the world, gambling much of his money away in casinos, competing at bridge and even getting into the occasional headline-making scuffle.
"I cannot stand the idea of having money in the bank and not spending it," he says. "It tempts me ... makes me want to do something exciting, rich."
Recently Sharif, who now lives in Paris, decided to renounce all passions in order to spend time with his family. He also decided to take a break from making bad films -- "25 years of rubbish," he says, "not one decent film" -- in order to wait for a role he could really feel proud of. When "Monsieur Ibrahim" came along with its message of religious tolerance and unlikely brotherhood, he knew he'd found just the role to sink his trademark gap-teeth into.
Grayer and growlier than he was in his heartthrob heyday, but no less charming, elegant and charismatic, Sharif met with Salon over coffee at a New York hotel one recent afternoon. (He does not do mornings, he says: "When there's no more light out, I'm happy") He looked deep into our eyes and told us a few of the things he's learned over the years.
"Monsieur Ibrahim" is your first movie in four years. Why this movie now?
There's too much violence around and this is a small but tender and gentle movie, and I really loved making it. I made it for my soul -- I didn't expect it to come to America. I thought it might stay two weeks in a cinema in Paris and that's it. But I liked the film and also I hadn't made a statement yet about the Middle East situation, and I felt I should because I am a loved person in the Middle East. I wanted to give my opinion -- that we can live together, we can love each other, it is not impossible. Stop killing each other. Sit and talk and be together. Making this movie might not change anything, but at least I know I said what I had on my mind.
So you felt like the film carried a message you'd been longing to convey?
Yes, but it's a fable. It's not reality, although it's based on the author's life. When I was thinking about my character, I wondered, how come this guy has had this grocery for maybe 40, 50 years and when the other customers come in, he never talks to them? He doesn't say, "How's your mother? How's your sister? How's your son?" He speaks only to this boy. When the boy isn't there, he doesn't exist. We never see him except when the boy walks in, as if his existence is tied to the boy's life. And he reads his mind. When the boy at the beginning is thinking, "Oh, he's only an Arab." Monsieur Ibrahim says, "I am not an Arab, Momo. I come from the Golden Crescent."
I wanted to make Ibrahim light and like a child. Obviously this man was lonely, but he was waiting for a child to play with, to be young with. When after a while, gradually, Monsieur Ibrahim and Momo become friends, they have fun together: they take the car and take driving lessons and go traveling. It's happy -- real happiness -- like two children having fun. That's what I wanted to put in this film.
Do you feel you succeeded in getting across what you wanted to?
Well, we needed to put one more little thing into the film. We needed one scene during the voyage where we are totally happy. Where the boy is laughing and is really having a good time, just laughing his head off, because he's very somber and life was so miserable. It needed just this one more little scene. I didn't notice it when I read it nor when I was shooting it, but when I saw it, I realized it needed this one scene.
At one point, your character does say, "I'm happy, Momo."
Yes, when I'm dying. It is the last lesson that I'm giving to the boy: How to die, that dying is not something terrible. "I am not dying," he says to Momo, because Momo is crying. "I'm just going to the immensity." It's something to smile about, not to be sad.
Did you bring anything from your own life to the role?
I don't know whether he brought it to me or I brought it to him, because we ended up being exactly the same. I mean, I have now the same opinions as M. Ibrahim. Something happened in that film that made me agree with everything he says.
You see, I have this relationship with my grandson. I have two grandchildren. One is 20 and he's Jewish, and one is 4 and he's Muslim. They're brothers and they love each other. My son married an Orthodox Polish Jewish woman, and then he married a Catholic who didn't have children and now he's married to a Muslim girl and he's got this little boy. And I play with my grandchildren like mad, like a child. I risk breaking my back sometimes -- I roll on the ground. So maybe this is it, I love children, love to play with them, and M. Ibrahim obviously was waiting to have a child.
And you were waiting for this film. You were retired for a while, weren't you?
I had decided not to work anymore just to earn money to eat. I decided that I would not work if I didn't find something good. I decided to stop unless something good came along, something that I liked, that I wanted to make an effort for, and do it with pleasure, with passion.
