London, United Kingdom – Khaled Abdalla remembers sitting on his father’s shoulders as a three-year-old, peering over a sea of heads and waving flags as chants of “free Palestine” rose around him.
It was the early 1980s, a time when hearing “Palestine” was rare in the United Kingdom.
The details of those moments in Glasgow are faint, but he remembers how important the protest felt to his father and the crowds around them.
“I’ve had a relationship with protest for Palestinian liberation since then,” Abdalla told media.
Decades later, the Egyptian British actor – most known for his roles in The Kite Runner and The Crown – is still marching. But now he carries the weight of his public platform.
“After October 7, my first act was at The Crown premiere in LA, with ‘Ceasefire Now’ written on my hand,” he said.
“I didn’t know if that would immediately terminate my career. But it opened up a space far more positive than I expected. In standing up, I found my people, and my people found me.”
Since then, Abdalla has used every stage he can. At the Emmys, he wrote “Never Again” on his palm before stepping onto the red carpet.
“Each time I’ve done something like that, there has been fear,” he said, adding that while being cancelled does not worry him, he sometimes feels uncertain about how his protests might be received.
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