Shéraze

Shéraze Saïd is a French-Lebanese actress originally from Senegal. She tells us here about her journey and what led her to practice today the profession she always dreamed of doing. Between Dakar - where she grew up, and Paris - where she lives today, Shéraze tells us about her childhood, her roots, her doubts, her first scenes, and the importance of family - and families! And of course, she also has a lot to tell us about her curls...

My name is Shéraze and I am an actress. I am of Lebanese origin, and I am also Senegalese because I was born and raised in Dakar. My country and my identity is therefore also and especially Senegal! There is a large Lebanese diaspora there - my whole family still lives there. When I was 17, after my baccalaureate, I left Senegal for Bordeaux where I studied psychology. I went on to do my Master's degree, and then just before entering my fifth and final year, I stopped: it was stronger than me, on the eve of this last step, I realized with fear that I was going to be a psychologist at 23, and that my life was going to be like that... At the same time, I realized that this was not at all what I wanted to do! Although psychology interested me a lot - and still does today - I didn't want to make it my profession.

It's always been in me, but without me really realizing it. All my childhood, I played to create shows with my cousins, and my first time on stage was at the end of the year show at school when I was 13. I had asked to do some sketches of Elie Kakou that I love, and that I imitated alone in my room until then... I was doing Madame Sarfati and for a few years everybody called me "Elie Kakou" in Dakar! :)). I love self-mockery, even being ridiculous on stage, it doesn't bother me, on the contrary! I also made some scenes thanks to singing, another passion since I was 14 years old. But I haven't explored it in a professional way. It's more personal. When I sing, I have the feeling that it's a real exposure, a naked exposure... So I keep it a little bit to myself. I don't really dare to go there, not yet :)
And then in my family, on my father's side there is a real artistic fiber, but which could not necessarily blossom: generational problem, social and/or family pressure.... For my grandparents, their children could not be artists, or even "original" individuals, it was frowned upon. Nevertheless, they all have more or less this fiber, and made it bloom, or not: my aunt Rama Simone Farah is today a painter and fashion designer (she has a weaving workshop in Dakar, and has invented a weaving technique), she also built and entirely "designed" a hotel in Dakar - the Sokhamon. And my father wrote a play entirely in alexandrine when he was 30 years old, even though he is an obstetrician-gynecologist! I would love to be able to stage his play one day, and act in it, so that "Le temps d'un Pacha" finally exists on the stage!

At the age of 23, I decided to explore the artistic desire that was inside me, which I had not made any room for. After stopping my studies in Bordeaux, I returned to Dakar, where I took a year off and raised some questions. It wasn't easy, and my family -especially my mother- had a little difficulty accepting this idea, more out of fear of this "unconventional" job, fear of seeing me go back to Paris to start all over again, betting on the uncertainty inherent to this job... and "what was my life going to be like? When was I going to build a family?" This desire for a new start (in every sense of the word), questioned quite a few things at the time: my relationship with my parents, the place of cultural and family injunction, the difficulty of being an adult in the making... And then after a year, I left, almost driven by an instinct of (over)life! 2009, here I am in Paris! Enrolled in a theater school - Acting International - for 3 years of training. Another life can begin!

What was your first role, your first play?

As soon as school ended, we put on a play with a group of comedians: it was called "Les Disjonctés": a series of sketches of 5 minutes each. My sketch was called "Au poil"! I was talking about complexes, about the fact that I'm Mediterranean, Lebanese, that I have a beautiful hair but that it doesn't come without anything: I have the hair that goes with it :)) and that complexed me for a long time. Thanks to the self-mockery of this sketch, I desacralized the thing a little, I made it funny and positive, and the complexed teenager in me made peace with it!

We played "Les Disjonctés" at the BO Saint-Martin, then at the Théâtre des Blancs-Manteaux for a year, we also staged Feydeau plays at the Comédie Saint-Michel, and then finally the troupe disintegrated and we separated. After that I did castings (for the first time!), and I had the chance to play in a lot of comedies - it's quite a school! Then, 3 years ago, I met a director who was putting on "The Vagina Monologues, by Eve Ensler. It's a great play to defend for an actress. It speaks about the Woman through sexuality, culture, society, secret... it touches, we cry and we laugh!

We played it in the provinces for 2 months with great women, both professionally and humanly; including a great meeting, Cécile Marx, with whom a great friendship was born! She recently directed a short ironic-realistic film that will be released soon ("Claque la porte derrière toi"), played between a bunch of friends/actors. We like the idea and we nourish the desire to create a true artistic family.

You have beautiful hair. Where does it come from, and what is your relationship to it?

It comes from both sides, a real mix. Among the Lebanese, there is everything, brown, red, blond... My mother is blonde with blue eyes, and she has incredible hair, very long, wavy and with a lot of substance - she straightened it, it is very long and very beautiful; my father is brown, mat, and had a beautiful dense and very curly hair. And I am the mix of that: between the wavy and the very curly hair! It's strange because my hair started to curl at 12-13 years old: before, it was straight. At first I had a little trouble, I didn't know how to deal with it, even though I knew other "curly/curly" women. Hahah, but Lebanese women usually straighten their hair. I was one of the few who accepted curls, I never wanted to straighten them. Then, I quickly understood that it was a real strength: as soon as I went somewhere, people talked to me about my hair (less in Dakar, it's not as much of an originality), but when I arrived in Bordeaux at 17, I was hallucinating and I became aware of what my hair was, because I was getting so many compliments! I realized that it was my identity, my strength... It refers to the oriental and African woman that I am, to my roots, and I am proud of it!

The 3 questions we ask to all our Shaeri girls:

 Your #hairtop?

When I arrived in Bordeaux at the age of 17, I was often stopped in the street to make compliments on my hair. At first I was embarrassed, it took me a few years to feel comfortable with these "spontaneous" street compliments, but today I receive them with all the positivity they send!

Your #hairflop ?

 I have two: the first one was when I was 12, when I got a boyish haircut - just as my hair was starting to curl... and as a result, I was sometimes called 'young man' when I went into a store! And then the regrowth, the transition, it was a mess...

And my second hair flop was a year ago at the Vava restaurant in Montmartre, with my partner at the time: there was a candle in the middle of the table, and as I approached to talk more closely, my hair caught fire...! It went really fast... fortunately I was able to stop the beginning of this hair blaze by clapping my hands (Hahahaha), so it just made a kind of gradation... but it went really fast, it really smelled like burnt in the whole restaurant... I first freaked out, and then, big laugh!

Your #hairtips ?

 Bathing in the sea! I never love my hair as much as when I bathe in the sea in Senegal! And to nourish them, because they are very dry, I use natural coconut oil, which I mix with jojoba and avocado oil too. It's great to avoid frizz!

Finally, last question: what is your news?

I am currently playing in "Jamais le deuxième soir!", at the theater Le République: a scathing comedy about men-women relationships, full of self-deprecation!