During the early 1960's, Paris, like the much of Europe, was an explosion of life. As the old gave way to the new, everything was in flux and the city was filled with an energy that promised cultural shifts and social change. Against this background, in a working class neighborhood, two unlikely characters--a young Jew and an elderly Muslim--begin a friendship. When we meet Momo (Pierre Boulanger) , he is in effect an orphan even though he lives with his father, a man slowly retreating into a crippling depression. His only friends are the street whores who treat him with genuine affection. Momo buys his groceries at the neighborhood shop, a crowded dark space owned and run by Ibrahim (Omar Sharif), a silent exotic looking man who sees and knows more than he lets on. After Momo is abandoned by his father, Ibrahim becomes the one grownup in Momo's life. Together they begin a journey that will change their lives forever.

Omar Sharif (Ibrahim)

Born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1932, Sharif made is film debut in the 1953 Egyptian film Siraa Fil-Wadi. His subsequent work made him one of Egypt's biggest stars and landed him the life changing art of Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish in David Lean's Oscar winning epic Lawrence of Arabia. For his performance opposite Peter O'Toole as T. E. Lawrence's friend, Sharif was received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Three years later he re-teamed with Lean to star in the title role of Dr. Zhivago with Sir Ralph Richardson, Rod Steiger, Julie Christie, Tom Courtenay, Rita Tushingham, Alec Guinness and Geraldine Chaplin. In 1968 he appeared opposite Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl. His 50 year film career includes appearances in more than 70 films.

Omar Sharif on Mr. Ibrahim

Is it true that you did not want to make any more movies?

OS: Totally true. After my small role in the "The Thirteenth Warrior" with Antonio Banderas, I said to myself 'Let us stop this nonsense, these meal-tickets that we do because it pays well. Unless I find a stupendous film that I love. And that makes me want to leave home to do, I will stop.' Bad pictures are very humiliating, I was really sick. It is terrifying to have to do the dialogue from bad scripts, to face a director who does not know what he is doing, in a film so bad that it is not even worth exploring."

I didn't expect to find any picture or role that could make me want to start working again. It is not easy to find something that you want to play when you are old, with an indefinable accent and a rather oriental appearance. But last winter, while I was on vacation in Cairo, I had taken the Mr. Ibrahim script with me, and I had a chance to read it. I always read because, as you can see, you never know. I called immediately from Cairo. I never go to the movies so I knew nothing of Dupeyron. But, on the other hand, I did know Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, because I go to the theater.

What was your first impression upon reading the script?

OS: I was moved, touched and carried away by this script. I loved the theme, it interests me at this point in history. I wanted to get involved in this. I am not at all politically active. My son married a Jew, then a Catholic, and then a Muslim. That should tell you that I am open to all religions. But I have to say that for me this film is not religiously or even politically engaged. What I liked is that it was a love story, a film about humans, about exchanges. To me the fact that one of them is Jewish and the other Muslim is incidental, the relationship would be the same. This greengrocer that philosophizes without realizing it, is a man full of common sense, a kind of sage. The boy, Momo, to whom nobody has ever spoken, who never communicates with anyone, finds in Ibrahim a guy whose sayings make no sense to him in the beginning, but when he thinks about them, he realizes that he is not idiotic at all. He finds Ibrahim's deeds beautiful, so he concludes that what he says is also beautiful. He learns to trust him.

What was difficult about Ibrahim's role?

OS: I had to find the way to say meaningful things without sounding pretentious. To find a lightness and to that end I tried to make Ibrahim seem eccentric. He really is like Momo, he has nothing in his life. He spends his time in his grocery and does not talk to anyone. He is not really engaged in his business; sitting on his stool he sells things....that is his routine. He does not have a business sense. His work keeps him busy and lets him watch the passersby. Momo provides him with a reason to live, a new taste of life. I can understand that, because as I have grown older, my sense of life has changed. There is nothing that really fires me up. Maybe some friends and some dinner conversations when we are speaking freely. That is my only pleasure, and the two nights a week when I dine at the races. I have cut myself off from many pleasures, like bridge, for instance. For starters I was getting too carried away and I was starting to be less good at it. I cannot stand mediocrity. To play high level bridge requires intense concentration, eight hours a day for two straight weeks. I started to make mistakes. No champion is older than fifty, anyway. So I stopped. I did not want to become a parlor player.

Are you very competitive?

OS: Yes, my mother put that in my head. I really became an actor because of her. I was going to school at the French Friars. When I was about ten years old I started to fatten up: too much chocolate, too many pastries. My mother could not stand that. She wanted me to be exception... beautiful and famous. I could not be fat. She enrolled me in an English school, because the English don't eat well. And thanks to her I lost weight and learned English. I owe her my career.

When did you meet Director Francois Dupeyron?

OS: He came to dinner with his producer. I trust my instincts. That evening I liked him. He didn't say anything spectacular; he even exhibited a true naivete. There was something provicial about him, very engaging. Francois is an innocent, and I love people like him. I think that he was afraid of my sophistication. But we started rehearsals quickly and I liked my relationship with him. He was the director that I needed. I needed to be pushed, even a bit roughed up, to be told "Cut! That was nothing." Generally he was right. He is a guy who does not express himself very well, but I always had a sense of what he wanted. I understand people before they talk to me. Conversely, people who explain too much annoy me. Francois and I got along fine.

Francois was amazed to find you on the set early in the morning--three hours before your call.

OS: I was passionate about the film. I wanted to be there all the time, to soak the film up, and to live it to the full. I am a passionate person. While I am doing something that I like, I will be the first on the set and the last to go. I don't interfere, truly, I do not, I just watch to get ideas. Otherwise, when you arrive at the last minute, in your actor's skin, verything is ready to roll and you can contribute nothing. Whereas if you participate in the set-up, you can tell the team "Let's try it," and that is how ideas are born. I never have any preconceptions about a role, because if the director sees things differently from what I have imagined, I seize up.

An actor is like a cloth merchant. He brings his wares to the director, who is the customer. The director will say: "Show me what you have." The actor needs to be able to show him a variety of wares. The director looks and he chooses. Sometimes he mixes up all your proposals. He has to choose the cloth he wants. If you, as an actor, make the decision to show him some wool while he has been looking for silk then you are finished.

Which is why I like to come in early, to get involved in his [the director's] choices, to show him that there are things that I could do, things that I would dare to do which he might dare to ask for. Then I will have time to think, to get myself into the frame of mind to play that particular scene. I want to be available to the director.