Darguably the most common sentence Atheer Adel has said lately is: “Hello, I’m Dr. Lazar Sharif.” First of all, not an unusual text for an actor who plays a doctor. But for the 36-year-old, this sentence is a turning point in his career. The role of the senior doctor in the ZDF series “Notruf Hafen Kante” is the first in which he is not stereotypically cast as an actor of Arab origin – otherwise he played gangsters and drug dealers, terrorists or refugees in German productions.
Now Adel as Dr. Lazar Sharif since season 16 the new addition to Dr. Jasmin Jonas (Gerit Kling) in the fictional Elbe hospital not far from the also fictional police station 21 on the Kehrwiederspitze. The new season is coming in the fall.
Atheer Adel as Dr. Sharif in a scene from “Notruf Hafen Kante”
Source: ZDF/Boris Laewen
Adel was born in Baghdad in 1985 and came to Germany with his family in 1995 as a refugee. It was a long way for him to become a television senior doctor. “Anyone who comes to Germany as a refugee, like me, is labeled from the outset and put into separate classes. The future as a car mechanic or baker is predetermined,” says Adel looking back.
He was the eldest of four siblings and quickly settled into his new home in Munich. Thanks to volunteer teachers, he quickly learned German. The only thing that didn’t really work out was with school. Placed in a special “foreigners’ class,” he was repeatedly denied, received dozens of reprimands, changed schools. “I just didn’t feel like going to school because there was nothing that interested me,” he says in an interview with WELT AM SONNTAG.
Instead of getting bored in class, he went to the Am Gasteig library in Munich, read volumes of poetry by Brecht and Rilke. “I’m curious, I was also interested in literature and theater early on, influenced by my parents.” His parents, although both academics, didn’t have time to take care of their children’s education. They had to learn German, cope with everyday life, and fight with the local bureaucracy. “They had completely different problems back then.” Everyday life as a refugee.
Adel leaves school without a degree. He has been unemployed for two years and hangs out with other young people, most of whom have foreign roots. He experiences open racism, but only realizes the exclusion much later. “You always attract attention with your appearance. So I found it quite normal to be checked by the police for no reason,” says Adel. At the same time, his desire to become an actor grew. “For me it’s the art of interpreting that fascinated me and the opportunity to take and show different perspectives,” he says.
Theater is a niche product of a privileged world that someone like me doesn’t easily get into.
At the age of 21, Adel decided to go to Berlin, initially he had no chance at well-known schools. “Theater is a niche product of a privileged world that someone like me doesn’t easily get into.” He first attended the private, state-recognized European Theater School in Berlin and made completely new experiences there: Suddenly he learned things that interested him and that were fun. And: while in Munich he only has friends from similar social backgrounds, in the Berlin acting bubble his origins are hardly an issue.
The new environment doesn’t pigeonhole him immediately, it inspires him, that’s how he remembers the time. And things are developing in other ways too: in 2004 Adel became a German citizen, and in 2008 he was admitted to the renowned Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts. “There, too, I had to prove myself better than others. I had to audition multiple times to show, as one professor told me, that I was worth it,” says Adel.
He tells this episode not with bitterness, but rather with a certain defiance. “When I was then accepted, it was a satisfaction for me because I didn’t adapt to the educational path planned for me, but went my own way.He, who never warmed to the German school system and felt prejudiced for a long time.
Already during his studies he was engaged for the theater and for small TV roles. He is still exotic there. Because at that time there were simply not that many actors with a migration background, those who were familiar with German and, in his case, Arabic culture. His origin is therefore a unique selling point, at the same time the roles remain woodcut-like at the time.
In the productions of that time there was little room for one with his story. “Such a casting process is much less artistic than one might think, and more pragmatic. Sometimes it was enough for me to speak Arabic to get a role.” But that always put him in a certain box.
Outside of Germany, the production companies were a bit further at the beginning of the 2010s: in the fifth season of the American Netflix series “Homeland” (2015), which is shot entirely in Germany, Adel plays the Turkish hacker Numan. A little later he can be seen in a leading role in the Norwegian series “Nobel”, also in the Polish war film “Karbala”, in the series “Blochin” with Jürgen Vogel he plays a supporting role. In general, he quickly does well in business, but above all in foreign productions.
And yet Adel observes that things are slowly changing in Germany when it comes to castings. It’s still the time before “Bridgerton”, the series that historically cast its characters completely freely, such as the Queen with a black actress. Suddenly there is talk of “colorblind casting”, i.e. colorblind casting, roles should be assigned according to talent and skills, not according to skin color.
At the same time, there are other currents as well. Amazon has set itself strict inclusion guidelines for its series: Only actors whose identity, i.e. nationality, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability, matches the characters they play should be hired. A guideline that is sharply criticized, from the “end of acting” is about the speech.
Adel wishes for more roles like his Dr. Sharif. The doctor he plays is ambitious, sometimes a little dogged, overzealous in his job, quite humorous – his background, on the other hand, plays no role in the series. He is married to Wiebke (Alexandra Gottschlich) and has a teenage daughter. dr Sharif is a serious man, a character in whom he sees many parallels to himself.
“Like me, Lazar Sharif believes in straightforwardness, in the fact that ambition pays off and that effort is never in vain, that even supposed mistakes can turn into good experiences.” The actors were fascinating, as was the good chemistry between him and the director Oren Schmuckler and the open atmosphere on the set. “You can tell that the team works very well together, behind and in front of the camera.” He always feels like he’s in very good company when he’s shooting. “You just don’t want to leave.” He doesn’t have to. Atheer Adel has finally arrived in the industry.