Some things can’t be ignored when meeting Mayan El Sayed for the first time. She is petite and slender, the warmth of her big brown eyes outmatched only by her even warmer broad smile – and she has an envy-inducing mane of hair. But it would be reductive to only describe the actor by her appearance. The real takeaway after spending time with El Sayed is that she is driven, determined, and clearly knows what her mission in life is – to act. 

“Since I was very young – like maybe when I was five years old – I loved the theatre. My parents would turn on the TV and I would just sit there for hours watching plays like Keda Okay. It was the only thing I would think about, the only thing I would talk about,” recalls El Sayed about her first introduction to her calling. 

But breaking into acting was a bit bumpy at the beginning. Having no connections to the industry, early attempts found the actor’s parents being taken in by an unscrupulous scam artist. It was the all-too-familiar tale of an ‘agent’ who – for a fee – promised to get El Sayed meetings for acting jobs. When the reality of the con set in, the family decided to have the budding actor focus her energy on getting an education first, before giving her dream another go when she was older.

When El Sayed finally decided to dip her toe back into acting, she channelled it through her education. At the American University in Cairo, she learned the craft and discovered the different tools she could implement, like the Meisner Technique, or studying the work of leaders in the field such as Konstantin Stanislavski. Eventually, she graduated with a degree in Theatre and Film from the Egyptian school. 

However, even before the actor had her diploma in her hand, she was making a name for herself as a promising talent in Egyptian cinema. Her earliest acting credits include the impressive back-to-back series that came out in 2017, Zel el Raee and Kaeno Embareh, which showed her range. 

Then, after a handful of other projects, including the series Zodiac and the film High School Girls, El Sayed had a real “pinch-me moment” when, in 2021, she was cast in Newton’s Cradle alongside her acting idol Mona Zaki. “She’s a ray of sunshine,” says Zaki about El Sayed, adding that she has enjoyed seeing how the young actor continues to progress in her work. 

That same year, El Sayed also collaborated with another dream scene partner – Yousra – in the Ramadan drama Civil War. The pair would team up again two years later on the series 1,000 Hamdela Al Salama. 

“To me, she is Queen Yousra,” says El Sayed, lifting up her phone to show that she has got the actor on speed dial. “I was very lucky to have worked with these incredible women at the beginning of my career. The first word that comes to mind when I think of them is professionalism. Of course, they are both great actresses and extremely talented. But for me, what I saw working with them was how engaged they were with the crew, how they were always on time on set and ready to go.”

“They are stars – they don’t need to prove themselves, but they just showed up every day with that passion to do the work while staying humble and grounded. And they were so generous and supportive of me, I learned so much from them,” recounts the actor. 

According to celebrity stylist Cedric Haddad, who has dressed El Sayed for red-carpet events like the Red Sea Film Festival and the El Gouna Film Festival, those teachings have rubbed off on the actor. “She is a hard worker, very professional, and always on time,” he shares. “She is very keen on making sure that every single detail is just perfect…because she knows that every single detail counts! I love Mayan, she is a real star.”

Behind El Sayed’s head as we chat over Zoom is a sign that reads ‘Work Hard/Stay Humble’ – nothing can make it clearer that the writing is literally on the wall when it comes to the actor’s motto in life. 

The oldest of four daughters, she grew up in a household filled with love and examples of perseverance. There, she also gained a close understanding of the determination it takes to truly follow a dream. 

Looking at her parents – her mother, a homemaker, and her father, who ended up working in the family business rather than pursuing his passion to be a lawyer – El Sayed saw first-hand what dreams deferred can look like. Their unwavering support of her desire to act has only fuelled her drive to be successful and be the best at what she does. 

“I saw how much my mother struggles with us – I mean, we were four rebellious girls,” the actor says with a laugh about her childhood. “But she would tell me not to give up on the idea of having a job and having a voice in the world. And my father had other passions, but he put them aside for the family business, to work alongside his dad. So that also inspired me to never give up on what I love. Because I think, sometimes, when you do things only for others, you can kind of lose yourself along the way. I still wonder what it would have been like if he had done what he actually loved.” 

At 27, the actor continues to blaze her own path. She recently bought her first home and will soon be moving out of her family residence into her own place in Cairo, closer to her work. “It’s the first time I will be living all on my own,” she shares with excitement in her voice. 

“In our culture, you usually stay with your family until you get married, but I wanted to navigate adult life on my own, to gain more confidence in myself and take more responsibility for my life,” explains El Sayed.

That sense of responsibility also extends to her training as an actor. The once-shy child, who used acting and embodying characters as a way to get over her insecurities, is determined to continue to hone her talents as an artist. 

She is currently looking at different acting programmes that can help her sharpen her skills and build her range as an actor because she sees the world of acting opening up for her generation in ways those who came before her could never have dreamt of. 

With the advent of streaming services, diverse populations around the world now have the ability to not only access TV series and films in other languages, but also have an honest appreciation for them. Thanks to this, El Sayed doesn’t see her future being limited to just Egyptian cinema. 

“This generation of young actors in the Arab world, we are different. I feel like we have this passion to learn more and to explore more,” she says. “Right now, the world is really opening up. You can watch a movie from Korea or a movie from Spain. And why not try breaking into Bollywood or Hollywood? There are so many possibilities for actors today.”

This growing appetite for global productions also means there is now more room to tell Arab stories, something the Egyptian actor is also quite excited about. Being able to bring narratives about her heritage and culture into the world has become an important aspect of her acting journey. 

“We want to be seen, and we want others to know us. To realise that we have these incredible talents too – things to say, music to compose, stories to tell, struggles to show,” she explains. “This is why I don’t want to stop studying acting, so I can continue to improve as an actress – I want to help tell those stories the best way I can.”

As an example of how she is trying to grow as an actor, El Sayed opens up about how, early in her career, when she needed to tap into emotions of grief and sadness, she turned to personal history to access those feelings. 

One instance in particular is the death of her childhood friend Mustafa, who passed away when she was at university. “I would think about him, and that would instantly get me into that space. But then I decided to stop tapping into those memories because it was starting to affect me,” she shares. 

“I realised that I didn’t want to think about him only as a tool to connect to those feelings,” she continues. “I wanted to just remember all the good memories and smile when I thought about him. So now, I don’t do that anymore. I have worked on my craft to find other ways to access those emotions.”

The art of storytelling fundamentally drives El Sayed. When she isn’t on-set creating stories, she is an avid cinephile, constantly watching films and TV series to both perfect her craft and for the pure enjoyment she gets from being moved by the stories on the silver screen.

As she continues to grow as an artist, her comfort with taking more risks has also expanded. Whereas once she would do months of prep, creating rich backstories for her characters and learning her lines backwards and forwards, she is now allowing herself more creative room to explore her emotions on the day of filming, being less rigid in how she works. Doing the preparations and then letting it all go enables her to be open to the unexpected magic that can arise when the cameras begin to roll. 

This newfound confidence and trust in her abilities sees her trying her hand at a number of different genres (although acting in a horror film is still on her bucket list). In the past year alone, she worked on six different projects – the movies Hepta, W Lana Fel Khayal Hob, Kasr El Basha, Colonia and Negoum El Sahel, as well as the upcoming Ramadan series Nos El Sha’b Esmo Mohamed. 

El Sayed confesses that she can’t remember a time when she didn’t dream of becoming a successful actor. As a kid, she made a list of goals for herself – “including having an Oscar by the time I was 25,” she says with a smile. But today, it’s the power of what she does – to help start conversations, educate and illuminate – that truly motivates her.

A prime example of this is when she played a young woman with autism in the film Ela Ana Helm Hayaty. “It was very challenging for me, and it pushed me in so many ways,” says the actor. “But I am deeply proud of that performance because I really connected with that character and felt like I had a purpose to do her justice.” 

To this day, people still stop the actor on the street to tell her how much that role impacted them. “I love being able to entertain people with my work, but what I do can be so much bigger than that,” El Sayed notes. Without question, the past few years have seen a pretty meteoric rise in her career as an actor, but it didn’t come without a cost. 

There was a dark period when she, who now counts 5.5 million followers on Instagram alone, struggled with self-doubt brought on by online bullying and negative criticism of her performance on a project. 

“Sometimes, we get into bad situations that can affect our personalities and affect our love for ourselves, and make us doubt ourselves and our talents,” she confesses. “It got to the point where I felt like I didn’t want to continue, that my whole identity was wrapped up in being an actress, and if that came crumbling down, then I would have nothing left.” 

To combat the negativity she was facing – both from external forces and from within – El Sayed turned to a life coach who helped give her the tools she needed to shift her thinking and view her life from a different angle. It took time and hard work, but the actor feels that she now has a better understanding of who she is outside of her career. 

“I’ve discovered that acting cannot be the only thing in my life. I know that, no matter how much I love it, there have to be other things that I can hold on to. And if one day it actually crumbles and falls, I’m still me. I’m not gonna cease to exist. So, right now, I don’t believe I’m just an actress. I believe I’m a lover, I’m a daughter, I’m a friend, I’m a human being,” the actor says with feeling. “I have a lot to do in this world – places to see, nature to observe, music to listen to, books to read and films to watch. There is so much out there to explore.” 

As El Sayed continues her journey of self-discovery, the rest of us can count ourselves lucky that, through her work, we will be along for the ride. 

Executive Producer: Beya Bou-Harb
Cinematographers: Tahlia Govender/ Arian Honti
Make Up/Hair: Mauro D. Hernan
Assistant Stylist: Iness Bouderka
Assistant Makeup/Hair: Kenza Bia
Location: Delano Dubai Penthouse