Broadcasting: Noof Ousellam

Actor and writer Noof Ousellam shares his experience of growing up in Edinburgh, changing his name (and changing it back), and why his first ever kiss helped him to embrace his Moroccan heritage.

It’s early February; I’m sat in the dressing room of the Donmar Warehouse. Outside, I can hear the faint thrum of people queuing in the hope to get their hands on a coveted ticket to watch David Tennant take to the stage as Macbeth. Inside, I can hear David (we’re friends, I think) microwaving his dinner in the kitchen. I’m going to guess he’s having something down-to-earth, not quite a sandwich but sandwich-adjacent. Maybe a jacket potato. I’m in the dressing room with my friend Noof, who’s playing Macduff (no biggie). He’s having sushi, from Itsu. Pretty down-to-earth as sushi goes. 

I’ve known Noof for three years now. We’ve been working on a North-African road trip TV comedy together. As part of this process, we’ve spoken a lot about identity. What continues to strike me is how much weight that word holds. Identity takes on a myriad of meanings, something that Noof, as an actor, is more than familiar with.

I speak to Noof as he’s in the final days of Macbeth’s run at the Donmar Warehouse (don’t worry, it’ll be back in the Autumn at a yet-to-be-announced London theatre). He also stars in BBC drama Rebus, as well as Bridgerton S3, both coming to our screens later this spring. Noof’s credits include the award-winning feature film Leave To Remain, Star Wars: Andor, BBC’s Guilt and Vigil, as well as his stage roles in Baghdaddy and Olivier Award-winning Leopoldstadt. I have to tell you this because Noof won’t. He’s so humble. And very, very wise. I learnt a lot from speaking to him and I hope you will take something meaningful from our chat too.

Donmar Warehouse’s Macbeth. Credit: Marc Brenner

As we both know, identity is complicated and I never want to make any presumptions. So, before we start, I’d like to ask how you identify? 

I identify as African. You can say North African, but - for me - saying so creates more borders within the community of Africa. I’m not saying all of Africa is the same, but it goes deeper than man-made borders. It’s the African soil, air and water that has shaped my veins, thanks to my Moroccan parents and grandparents. I feel at my best when my face is in the sun, my feet are on sand, and my ankles are covered by the sea. 

I feel African, but my mentality is European because I grew up in Scotland. I love calling myself Scottish. It makes me feel accepted into a group I’ve been part of my whole life, but never quite got the ticket for. I’ve got pieces of it, but it’ll never be a full one because I don’t have the blood of a Scotsman. I now feel like that’s OK, like I don’t even want the Scottish ticket if it means relinquishing my African one. It’s a privilege to have both, but it does mean you sort of exist everywhere and nowhere. It’s part of the reason I started writing the show we’re working on together. I want to explore the strangeness of never feeling like you really belong anywhere. I’m 39 years old and I still don’t feel fully accepted. I don’t know if I ever will.

From my experience, it can be difficult to have a sense of pride about your heritage when you feel like an outsider. Was it especially hard when you were younger? 

Definitely. I wanted to erase my Africanness to fit in with my white, Scottish friends. Where we grew up in Edinburgh, I was subject to racial abuse every day. There was always something for them to make fun of: my skin, my teeth, my hair. I was embarrassed because I saw them how they saw me; they saw me like I was vermin and lucky to be a part of their group. I wanted to be seen as the same as them, so I tried to erase my background. I used to say I was Scottish, never Moroccan. I find it painful now to think of myself as that youngster. They didn’t understand me or my family’s struggles. I remember everyone in my school going to Disneyland. I wanted to go so badly, and every year my parents would say, ‘Inshallah’. Then, one summer, my mum decided to take us to Blackpool Pleasure beach. That was my Disneyland - I absolutely loved it! The fact that my mum could take us there is good enough. It took me years to accept that. To accept that I am who I am. If I don’t accept that, then no-one else will.

Was there a specific moment that sent you on that journey of self-acceptance, or was it just growing up?

It was women! It was when I started to understand my sexuality. I remember my first girlfriend fancied me because I looked Mediterranean. There’s a whole lot to unpack there (!), but the point is, she found me attractive, and that’s what I took from the experience. I had my first kiss with her, and it was one of the first times I’d felt accepted and desired. The older I got, the more I felt like I was able to offer women a different understanding of love and care, and, in turn, they made me feel handsome and sexy. Women gave me power whilst men belittled me. Men treated me like I was an outsider, never one of the lads. The women in my youth gave me the confidence to accept myself. It’s kind of weird… I think that’s the first time I’ve ever articulated it!

BAFTA Elevate: 2019

You’re a member of BAFTA Elevate, a programme designed to support people from underrepresented groups in the screen industries. On your BAFTA page, it reads ‘it was a candid conversation with [your] brother when still a teenager that changed the course of [your] life’. Can you talk more about that?  

That was Mohamed. Mohamed was mixed in with the wrong crowd in the Fort area of Leith, where we lived. He wanted to get out and move to London, where he’d just accepted a new job. He was on a night out celebrating when, on his way home, he was jumped by 40 people in a racially-motivated attack. His head was smashed in with a For Sale sign, and he was in a coma for three days. I was in an army cadet camp at the time. I was pulled aside and they told me what had happened. I didn’t even recognise him when I got to the hospital. It was so scary. 

A few weeks later, when he was out of hospital, Mohamed turned to me and said, ‘are you still going to join the army?’ I told him yes, for a couple of years. ‘Why do you want to risk your life for people who jump me in the street?’, he asked. I will never forget that. We were on Madeira street, opposite the church. I remember thinking, I don’t want to kill anybody. I loved the training, but I don’t actually want to do this job. I don’t want to hurt anybody on the planet, especially because they all look like me. I’m not going to point a gun at someone who looks like they could be my brother or sister.

And that’s when you pursued a career as an actor. Did you always want to act?

Since I watched Star Wars, when I was about 4 or 5! It was escapism for me. I was bullied, so the only time I felt safe was when I was in the cinema or watching a film at home. You don’t realise how depressed you can be as a kid - you just think that’s life. But when I was watching a film, the pain and the worry would go. And I thought, I want to do that; I want to make someone else feel like that. 

I feel free when I’m acting. I feel like I can express myself, which I never felt as a kid. I found it embarrassing at first. I mean, it is actually a bit embarrassing, right?! Take away the fact you’re playing a character and it’s like, here I am, wearing a stupid costume, putting on an accent and everyone is staring at me! But once I get past that feeling, I realise how powerful it is. Acting is about making people feel something. Taking them out of their life, out of their head and making them feel. It’s so cool.

Love, Life & Records, BBC One

We’ve spoken about you feeling like an outsider. I’m interested in whether that feeling is compounded by an industry where rejection and failure is so rife? 

When I first started, I felt like like a failure. Casting directors would only see me as Khalid the drug dealer, or Abdul the asylum seeker. And I was like, hang on, I didn’t sign up for this! I was going by Naoufal Ousellam at the time, which is my full name, and I remember the casting director Ros Hubbard saying to me, ‘your name is beautiful, but everyone calls you Noof.’ She was right - everyone did. So I decided to change my name to Noof, and keep Naoufal for family only. That was in 2012. By 2015, I still wasn’t getting into any rooms, so I spoke to my agent about changing my surname to something more palatable. She really didn’t want me to. She said, ‘I will fight for you to be in those rooms’, but I knew it would be easier. So I changed it to Noof McEwen. Things changed for me after that. Casting directors who I’d met before would ask me, ‘which one of your parents is Scottish?’, and I’d be like, neither! I spent 5 years building up my career as Noof McEwen, before changing it back to Ousellam in 2020. 

I hate that I had to change my name in the first place, but it’s all part of my journey. I don’t see those rejections as failures anymore. My brother gave me a postcard when I didn’t get into drama school the first time. On it was written, ‘Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail better’.* And I thought I’m going to continue to fail fucking gloriously!

*(That’s a Samuel Beckett quote, by the way. He’s the OG Elizabeth Day. I adore both of them).

You’ve had so many brilliant roles in the last ten years, both on stage and screen. Do you still feel like you’re typecast? 

Yes, but I don’t entertain it any more. I turn those roles and auditions down. I got asked to audition to play a Turkish drug dealer last year, and I said no. I’d rather be unemployed. If I want the industry to change, I have to be at the forefront of my own change. I will curate my career the way I want to. I’m manifesting James Bond next!

I’d like to finish by asking who inspires you the most? 

My mum. My mum has been through some serious hardships. She’s not had the finances to allow her to do what she wants to do, and society has repeatedly made her feel like she’s beneath everyone. So she believes it. But she raised five kids in a really difficult environment. She always put food on the table, no matter what. I know she’s had times where she wishes she wasn’t on this planet, but she has never ever quit. She’s survived a hundred percent of her problems. I look at her now and I try my best to take care of her. If I’m half of what she is, I am sure to succeed. 

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