Sayyid El Alami: “I am proof that everything is possible if we give ourselves the means”
The hero of Oussekine confirms after their children after them his irresistible rise in power with the pampa. Meeting with an actor who knew how to go to the end of his dreams.
You who wanted to become a footballer, what makes you branch off towards cinema?
SAYYID EL ALAMI : I was indeed a billion years from this universe. And it was a chain of a lot, even if everything probably starts from the films that I watch with my mother on TV, especially those of Funès. But an element was particularly decisive. I regularly went on YouTube to see extracts from football matches and, one day, I came across two making-of that taped me. That of H Where I see people laughing and where I tell myself that this is what I want to do. And on that ofHarry Potter which fascinates me with its gigantism. I then start to be interested in this world, I understand that in addition to being an entertainment, it is a way to learn, to open up to the world. So at 13, that’s obvious, that’s what I want to do with my life.
How do you use it then?
I go to casting sites, sometimes paid, I send applications whose answers I always expect! (laughs) I couldn’t get ripped anyway because we had no money. And then, at 13, I rode one of my sisters who then lives in Paris to get an idea of this city where I knew that I should settle down. Because already, in my head, I was no longer afraid of having shots or failing. I just saw the arrival. So I inquired about how to recover student accommodation. And once the tank is in my pocket, I sit in Paris and I enroll in college for the pleasure of studying. I first attempted theater and cinema but I made myself because the theory interested me less at that time today. Then I signed up in tongues because I knew what I do, it would serve me. I went to the license, but I didn’t even validated it. The goal was really to go to learn.
How do you find yourself at the Association Mille Faces, created by Houda Benyamina, which will prove to be essential in your journey?
Thanks to a spot that I shoot with the actor Matar Cissé who is one of them. Divine had just come out. We are at the end of 2016. I’m going to take a look and it’s a good good to see people who earn cesars and look like me. Even if I’m only going to stay there for six months. And then comes the time of the first callback in the hearings I spend. It was for the movie The Blessed In 2017. I am finally too young for the role but failing in the final is already a huge victory! More broadly, even when I was answered negatively, I was happy because at least I existed!
And what will be the next step?
Another decisive meeting after a callback where I am explained to me that the concern comes from my southern accent. Because I will become close to the one who tells me that, who reassures me and will give me confidence by ensuring that he does not worry about me because I am very lucid. He tells me that he knows I’m going to get there. His name is Julien Collet. He is an actor, screenwriter, director and sometimes coaches Isabelle Ajdani. And he will give me his time. At that time- there is no price for my career. He also helps me find a first agent. We will often tell me that elsewhere. And since I don’t pick up anything, it will end up getting drunk. I was worried about myself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3KRJU5DD3O
When does your first long arrive finally arrive?
In 2018 with Monsieur-Je-Sais-Tout. I am under observation. Happy to be even if I have no text. I just have to play football, a wink of fate! I meet Bruni Makaya with whom I am always a friend. I study everything that is going on. And at the same time, I who have always worked my English, I begin to “harass” the Anglo-Saxon casting directors. We motivate each other with Samir Deccazza that I also knew with a thousand faces. My second big meeting. Because he will give me all the experience he has acquired by ensuring that I will make it better than him. It is of incredible generosity. He has Elizabeth Tanner for agent, therefore access to more castings than me and will give me all his info. It is the start of the original Netflix productions. And Samir gives me the pipe for the series Messiah and the email of the casting director. The process will be very long. We start by telling me no but I then pick up the central male role of another series, The Little Drummer Girl From Park Chan Wook with Florence Pugh. And finally this proposal falls into the water … the day we end up telling me yes to Messiah ! They ask me for total exclusivity. I have to even give up the two short films I had to do. And there, I discover the patience that this job requires.
For what reason?
Because after season 1, I prepare to move to Los Angeles. To go from my city U to search for an apartment in the bus I am told that I am the main role of the second and the third season. I have an appointment with Michael Petroni, the director of the series, on Sunset Boulevard. I tell myself that everything is possible, that my desire allowed me to be where I should never have been. Then the covid arrives … and the rest of Messiah Go be canceled in stride!
Return to zero box therefore …
Yes and as I played in Arabic, I can see that it did not really print in France. Some that I meet even recommend that I watch the series without understanding that I played in it! So it means that I can disappear behind a character. Which is a great asset but at that time, I saw it as a weakness.
How are you going to chain?
By a first role in the series Such a long night on TF1. And then will arrive at the meeting with Antoine Chevrollier for the series Oussekine. By casting. The meeting takes place at the Bleu studio in Strasbourg Saint-Denis. A place where I spent one of the first casts of my life at 16. Antoine is very cold at the start. And then we start to discuss and he impresses me. We are talking about rap, police blunders, where I come from, what I want to do. We make scenes with its casting director Gigi Akoka. And then I pick up the role. He explains to me that Malik’s family also validated me. His confidence and kindness will bring me. At that time, I am also in the final for another series, Gangs of London but I am asked once again an exclusivity that would prevent me from doing Oussekine. And there it is I who say no. For the reach of the series and because I cannot do this to the family who validated me. There was obvious in our relationship with Antoine. We had the same pace, the same desires, the same destination but without knowing it!
And yet he does not tell you about The Pampa that he is about to achieve …
After OussekineI’m not going to shoot for two years. I’m even starting to tell myself that I’m going to leave Paris. I still come up against the violence of this profession. Fifteen callbacks. Fifteen failures. I want to discover the world rather than mold. I still try to find out to find out what does not stick to me. And then the day I arrive in the last straight line of a casting of another American series, Antoine calls me to pass the tests for The Pampa By saying to me: “Come to this hearing … because I want to be sure that it is not you! »(Laughs) And it turns out that I will win this cast and that of Their children after them At the same time! And this while the Americans want to see me in the United States for the final callback and ask me to be available six months. But the series, I did it, it didn’t really change my life. So I decide without hesitation to favor feature films. Everything was played for me between March 7 and 15, 2023.
What had seduced you in Their children after them ?
It was Antoine and Kevin Besson, director of fiction at Disney who advised me to read it when he came out. I immersed myself six months later by having discussed with them many political subjects, social determinism. You should know that my end of filming gift from Antoine was Determinism de Bourdieu! I have a little trouble with the exhibition of the story but once the story is posed, I devour it because it tells the time of my big brothers. I even write my admiration to Nicolas Mathieu on Instagram. Through this novel, I also realize what deeply means to extricate itself from its condition. The last three words of the book remain engraved in me: “the appalling sweetness of belonging”. Because, I left everything I could belong to Toulouse: my friends, my social class, my parents. And Their children after them put words on what I had captured: I was nothing but except for myself.
What are your projects in the coming months?
I’m going to shoot in the second feature film by Artus with whom I got friends on The Pampa. I was also chosen from several other projects. But I do not know yet if I will do them, nor which are funded. The dynamics have changed for me, even if it remains precarious but when I turn back to these years, since my arrival in Paris full of dreams, it has moved me because I am proof that everything is possible if we give ourselves the means. Without ever forgetting that everything can stop tomorrow!
The Pampa. Antoine Chevroollier. With Sayyid El Alami, Amaury Foucher, Damien Bonnard … Duration 1h43. Released on February 5, 2025
