emirates7 - Actors Bassam Kousa, one of Syria’s most acclaimed film and television performers, and Eyad Nassar, a leading Jordanian actor based in Egypt known for his wide range and award-winning roles, said the essence of acting rests on truthful performance and an actor’s ability to present a role with genuine human depth.
In a session titled ‘Presence Is the Actor’s Invisible Chemistry’ at Bridge Summit 2025 in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, the duo examined how authenticity, awareness, and lived experience shape an actor’s presence on screen and stage.
Kousa, a veteran of Arab cinema and drama with an extensive career in film, television, theatre, and directing, offered a detailed philosophical view on the nature of good and evil as inseparable human values. He said an actor’s role is to understand and analyze a character.
Audiences, he noted, respond only to genuine performance and can easily distinguish between work that is made with care and work that feels forced. He also highlighted how his background in visual arts sharpened his sense of form, movement, and color, strengthening his understanding of the relationship between aesthetics and dramatic structure.
For his part, Nassar, well known across the region for standout roles in both cinema and television, presented a different reading of the acting space, describing it as a field for discovering deeper questions within the human self.
He said complex characters with moral ambiguity offer the richest ground for exploration, while purely virtuous roles rarely provide the same depth. In some projects, he added, he confronted the shadows within a character to the point of feeling unsettled, calling that awareness part of an actor’s responsibility.
He stressed that the core criterion for performance is not emotional sincerity but truth — a realistic and human understanding of the character. Nassar said audiences do not expect perfection from actors but expect honesty, and that breaking this unwritten contract diminishes a role’s impact.
He also noted the importance of role variety, adding that his early training in the visual arts continues to shape how he constructs characters.
The talk is part of a 300+-session programme that reflects BRIDGE Summit’s scale and ambition. The debut edition of BRIDGE Summit takes place from 8–10 December 2025 at ADNEC in Abu Dhabi.
In a session titled ‘Presence Is the Actor’s Invisible Chemistry’ at Bridge Summit 2025 in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, the duo examined how authenticity, awareness, and lived experience shape an actor’s presence on screen and stage.
Kousa, a veteran of Arab cinema and drama with an extensive career in film, television, theatre, and directing, offered a detailed philosophical view on the nature of good and evil as inseparable human values. He said an actor’s role is to understand and analyze a character.
Audiences, he noted, respond only to genuine performance and can easily distinguish between work that is made with care and work that feels forced. He also highlighted how his background in visual arts sharpened his sense of form, movement, and color, strengthening his understanding of the relationship between aesthetics and dramatic structure.
For his part, Nassar, well known across the region for standout roles in both cinema and television, presented a different reading of the acting space, describing it as a field for discovering deeper questions within the human self.
He said complex characters with moral ambiguity offer the richest ground for exploration, while purely virtuous roles rarely provide the same depth. In some projects, he added, he confronted the shadows within a character to the point of feeling unsettled, calling that awareness part of an actor’s responsibility.
He stressed that the core criterion for performance is not emotional sincerity but truth — a realistic and human understanding of the character. Nassar said audiences do not expect perfection from actors but expect honesty, and that breaking this unwritten contract diminishes a role’s impact.
He also noted the importance of role variety, adding that his early training in the visual arts continues to shape how he constructs characters.
The talk is part of a 300+-session programme that reflects BRIDGE Summit’s scale and ambition. The debut edition of BRIDGE Summit takes place from 8–10 December 2025 at ADNEC in Abu Dhabi.