Karim Kassem

Karim was born on 8 October 1986 in Cairo, Egypt. He is a Muslim himself though had a multi-faith religious upbringing celebrating all Jewish, Christian and Muslim holidays as a child. His late mother was Jewish and his father is a Muslim and is from both Islamic and Christian faith heritage. His paternal grandfather was Muslim and his paternal grandmother was a Christian. His maternal grandfather was a Jewish anti-Zionist who refused to immigrate to Israel, believing Zionism to be a "racist" movement.[1][2][3] His maternal grandfather was a prominent Egyptian nationalist.

He is a graduate of the American University in Cairo, where he studied theatre and acted in many of the university's plays.[4] He is trilingual in Egyptian Arabic (also Standard Arabic), French and English.[4]

Discovered in 2006 while taking an acting workshop,[5] he had his cinematic breakthrough in the teen drug film Awqat Faragh meaning "Spare time".[6] Kassem has co-starred with colleague Amr Abed in three of his films.[4]

• Karim Kassem at IMDb
• Official Instagram page