Khaled Abol Naga

Khaled Muhammad Samy Abol Naga, credited as Khaled Abol Naga and by the mononym Kal Naga, is an Egyptian actor, director and producer. He is recognized primarily for his work in Egypt and the Middle East, but has increasingly ventured into American and British film and television roles. He started acting and directing plays and musicals in Egypt while studying theatre at The American University in Cairo. Beginning his professional acting career in 2000, Naga starred in several movies through the next decade with roles encompassing several genres, from musicals None but that! (2007), action Agamista (2007), Eyes Of A Thief (2014), thrillers Kashf Hesab (2007), art-house Heliopolis (2009), Villa 69 (2013), Decor (2014), and slapstick comedy Habibi Naêman (2008). Additionally, he has participated in several European film festivals, where he received a range of awards as an actor and producer. Since 2016, he has acted in several English-speaking roles, such as Tyrant on FX, History Channel's Vikings, and the BBC's TV mini-series The Last Post, and announced to appear in the upcoming Netflix Show Messiah 2019. In a film festival in 2016 that celebrated Arab film submissions to the Oscars, he was noted as being the most submitted actor in Arabic films submissions to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He is often tagged in western media as "Egypt's Brad Pitt", and he has also been described as "the next Omar Sharif" especially after his American debut movie Civic Duty in 2007. Chosen as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF in 2007, Naga played a pivotal role in child rights awareness, as well as the very first HIV awareness campaigns in Egypt and the Arab world, and participated in several international causes, including advocating for democracy in his home country Egypt. He is one of the most recognizable celebrity faces of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, taking part in mass demonstrations in Cairo that led to the removal of President Mubarak. He faced defamation campaigns against him by the state-owned media during the Mubarak era before the January 25th, 2011 revolution in Egypt, and several times again from the 2013 "coup d'etat" General Sisi government in Egypt in retaliation for his advocacy about the deterioration of human rights situation in Egypt.