CAIRO - The scene was Al Tahrir Square, where he was one of thousands of anti-regime protesters demanding the ouster of President Mubarak. Despite being an actor, Khaled el-Sawy, along with a number of other actors, was leading a protest, carried on the shoulders of other demonstrators, chanting: "People want to down the President." He wanted to play a patriotic role in the protests, in order to express his opposition to corruption and his desire for freedom. He, therefore, issued the following invitation to his colleagues via his Facebook account: "Dear fellow Egyptian artists, I invite you to gather tomorrow [January 27] in the club of the Actor's Union, in order to declare our solidarity with the people and their just demands for bread, freedom and dignity. If we don't do so immediately, we will lose their love and respect forever." He didn't realise that his colleagues would get angry and criticise him. Now the revolution has succeeded, with Mubarak stepping down on February 11, he has gained more, but lost as well. "I've lost half of my friends because they were against the revolt. But some were opposed to the revolt in the beginning, only to praise it after its success," El-Sawy said. "I despise these people and I advise them to stand by what they think, because people do not forget." Some artists were severely criticised for speaking out against the revolution, including Tamer Hosni, who attacked the revolt at first, urging the protesters to go home. He then joined them in Al Tahrir, but they didn't make him welcome, so he started crying. Actress Samah Anwar said on Governmental TV that the protesters in Al-Tahrir ought to be burned. Later, she denied saying this, although her words had been recorded. Actor Hassan Youssef told Governmental TV that the protesters were ‘agents', who were each given LE50 and an expensive meal. Those artists, who also included Ghada Abdel-Raziq, Mohamed Fouad, Youssra, Ilhame Chahine and Amr Moustafa, were very popular in the Arab world, until their negative comments about the revolution, which made the public do an 180 degree about-face. Despite the fact that el-Sawy is a well-to-do man, he entered into the revolt with enthusiasm. "I chose my principles," he said, adding that he's not sad about losing a lot of his friends. "Democracy has a price, and if this was the price I have no problem." El-Sawy derided some people for their fears about the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power in Egypt. "I am a leftist and have no problem with whichever party or group comes to power, as long as the elections are fair," he told Nas TV on the MBC channel. In 2006, El-Sawy starred in the film The Yacoubian Building, based on the book of the same name, written by Alaa el-Aswany, which deals with the reality of Mubarak's Egypt. In this movie, he played the role of a homosexual and was heavily criticised by most Egyptians for this. "In our Egyptian society, there are many taboos that we are afraid of talking about, but homosexuality is one of those that we should set some light on," he argued. "In The Yacoubian Building, I played one kind of homosexual. Not all homosexuals are ‘fluffy', but some of them are like the one in the film. The audience need to realise that some homosexuals can easily hide behind their appearances and professions." When someone asked him whether he would be prepared to portray former President Mubarak on screen, he said “yes”. “The artist does not have to declare his political leanings in his work.”
