Mr. Sharif junior, you were born in Montreal, grew up in Cairo, Paris and Florida, studied in Canada and Great Britain, modeled in Egypt, studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York and stood in front of the camera in many countries. Did you know immediately where you were when you woke up this morning?

This became clear to me at the latest when the city of West Hollywood contacted me. The water supply has collapsed for mysterious reasons. I would have liked to wash my hair for you, but that was not possible today. That's why I'm wearing a cap!

Thanks for the effort! But seriously: Where do you feel at home?

I don't feel at home anywhere, just like my grandfather. Omar Sharif left Egypt in the sixties during the Nasser government. It was hard to get visas to shoot in America or other countries back then. Although Egypt was his homeland, he did not go back for a long time. I, too, turned my back on Egypt in 2012, when the Muslim Brotherhood came to power. Since then, I have not been there and live like my grandfather out of a suitcase.

Do you like this lifestyle?

It makes you a citizen of the world. That is positive. But it is also true that as a citizen of the world you do not belong anywhere. This makes it difficult to develop roots and relationships. Over time, a kind of nomadic loneliness set in.

I imagine that the feeling of loneliness intensified when you came out as gay during the Arab Spring. As you write in your book "A Tale of Two Omars", it took three months before you could send the essay on your homosexuality to the LGBTQ magazine "The Advocate".

It was an incredibly difficult decision. But once I met her, it became easier. There's nothing easier than being yourself.

How was it for your family?

My family was overwhelmed by the timing. She said that in times of political upheaval and the Muslim Brotherhood, coming out was too dangerous. Egypt began to move back and become more Islamic. Not only on LGBTQ rights, but also on religious minorities and women's issues. The Muslim Brotherhood wasn't in power for long, but I still get death threats today.

More than ten years later?

Yes, unchecked and almost daily. Mostly on social media. I don't take the threats there so seriously. But they still worry my mother. She thinks I should delete the comments so as not to make others think stupidly. But you can't delete hate by deleting comments.

Not only your role as probably the first openly gay celebrity of an Arab country did not go down well with everyone. Your Jewish origins, which you made public at the same time, also struck many.

It is not only through my father Tarek Sharif and his father that I have an eventful family history. My mother's mother survived the Warsaw ghetto and several concentration camps, including Auschwitz. Her husband, my grandfather, was also a Holocaust survivor. In my childhood, we celebrated Muslim and Jewish holidays without being particularly religious. By the way, my grandfather Omar Sharif was born to Catholic parents. He later converted to Islam to marry my grandmother, the Egyptian actress Faten Hamama.