Khaled Abol Naga, also known as Kal, or Kalnaga is an Egyptian American actor, director, and producer. He is recognized primarily for his work in Egypt and the Middle East, but has increasingly ventured into American and British film and television roles since 2006. While studying theatre at The American University in Cairo, he started acting and directing (English and Arabic language) plays and musicals in Egypt.
Beginning his professional acting career in 2000, Naga starred in several movies through the next decade with roles encompassing several genres, from musicals such as None but that! (2007), to action such as Agamista (2007) and Eyes Of A Thief (2014), to thrillers such as Kashf Hesab (2007), to art-house such as Heliopolis (2009), Villa 69 (2013), and Decor (2014), to slapstick comedy such as Habibi Naêman (Sleeping Habibi) (2008). Additionally, he has participated in several European film festivals, receiving various awards as an actor and producer.
Since 2016, he has acted in several English-speaking roles, such as Tyrant on FX, History Channel's Vikings, and the BBC's TV mini-series The Last Post, and the Netflix Show Messiah in 2019. In a film festival in 2016 that celebrated Arab film submissions to the Oscars, he was noted as having the most number of submission in Arabic films to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (The Oscars). He has been tagged in western media as "Egypt's Brad Pitt", and he has also been described as "the next Omar Sharif," especially after his American debut movie Civic Duty in 2007.
Chosen as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF in 2007, Naga played a pivotal role in child rights awareness, as well as the very first HIV awareness campaigns in Egypt and the Arab world, and participated in several international causes, including advocating for democracy in his home country, Egypt. He is one of the most recognizable celebrity faces of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, taking part in mass demonstrations in Cairo that led to the removal of President Mubarak. He faced defamation campaigns against him by the state-owned media during the Mubarak era before the January 25th, 2011 revolution in Egypt, and several times again from the 2013 "coup d'etat" General Sisi government in Egypt in retaliation for his advocacy about the deterioration of human rights, especially the situation of Egyptian youth.
He was also a host for prime-time shows on many Arab TV networks from 1997 until 2005.
In recent years, Kal has returned to his musical roots, writing and producing original songs as a singer-songwriter under the name Khaled Abol Naga, also styled as KALNAGA & Captain Dodi. His music blends Egyptian Arabic with English and other languages, drawing on his bicultural identity to create bilingual and multilingual tracks aimed at audiences across the Middle East, Europe, Africa and the USA. His releases are produced through Tanasi.club, a music production outlet he runs with friends and collaborators, and are available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music.
Early years Naga was born in Heliopolis, a cosmopolitan neighborhood of Cairo, Egypt. His father, the late Egyptian army major General Mohamed-Sami Aboul-Naga (), came from a traditional family of major landowners in ad-Daqahliyah, Aga, Egypt where the land was mostly confiscated during the Nasser revolution of 1952 and its Land reform in Egypt. His mother claimed he is a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad through Fatima Az-Zahraa and Imam Husayn ibn Ali, son of Ali ibn Abi Talib. He is the younger brother of American-based Egyptian architect Tarek Naga and architect Seif Abol Naga, who appeared in the classic film Empire M.
During his childhood, Khaled Abol Naga spent much of his time with his elder brother Tarek, who lives in the US, and whom he has said had a significant influence on his character growing up. Khaled was naturally interested in acting at an early age and appeared in a film (Madness of Love) starring Naglaa Fathi. He attended St. George's College school for his primary education, graduated as an electrical telecommunications engineer from Ain Shams University Faculty of Engineering (ASUFE), and the American University in Cairo where he studied Computer Science with a minor in Theater and Drama. He played water polo for his varsity team while based in Europe (1986–9), worked part-time as a fashion model (1993–6), and was a late-night talk show host and radio presenter in the late 1990s.
He joined the theatre department at The American University in Cairo, where he had the opportunity to discover his acting talent in the university's drama productions. In 1997, he left for the United States for more independent studies of his passion, filmmaking. There, he studied film acting, cinematography, and directing. He cited his acting teacher, Dr Mahmoud Al Lozy, as his mentor who influenced him the most.
Acting career The first phase of Naga's acting career (1989–2002) was largely on stage (in the theatre). However, he began hosting TV talk shows in 1998, contributing to his popularity as a media personality in Egypt and Arabic-speaking states. His television and film work has included a variety of different genres. After co-producing and acting in the 2009 independent film Heliopolis by first-time director Ahmad Abdalla, he starred in a second film, Microphone, which he also co-produced with Mohamed Hefzy in 2010. From 2010 onwards, Abol Naga mostly played the lead of much more diverse and complex roles, continued to win numerous awards as an actor and as a producer from regional and international prestigious film festivals. Appointed as a jury member and sometimes jury head of regional and international film festivals.
Film Naga's acting career began in 1977 when he was still a child with a part in the Egyptian film Madness of Love (Arabic: جنون الحب) (aka: Genoun El Hob) (aka: La Folie De L'amore). Since then, he has appeared in various films, including psychological thrillers, romances, and musical comedies.
In 2001, his film career gained momentum when he director Daoud Abdel Sayed chose him for the lead in A Citizen, An Informant And A Thief (Mowaten we Mokhber we Haramy) (Arabic: مواطن و مخبر و حرامي). In 2002, he demonstrated his talent for singing in the musical comedy Wust El-Balad ("Downtown"). He was then offered a part in "Sleepless Nights" (aka: "Sahar El Layali"), which became a box office hit in 2003–2004. Later in the same year, Abol Naga was awarded Best Actor at the Damascus International Film Festival and the Best Actor Award from the Paris Arab Cinema Biennale of the Institute du Monde Arabe IMA Film Festival.
After "Sleepless Nights," aka: Sahar El Layali, Abol Naga acted in more films in a short period of time. In 2004, he played naval officer Lt Hasan Hosny in Yom El Karama (Dignity Day), followed by his character Kimo in the popular romantic comedy Hob El Banat (Girl's Love). In 2005–2006, he appeared in several more films: Italia's War, Malek wa Ketaba (Heads and Tails), and the romantic comedy Banat West El Balad (Downtown Girls).
In 2006, he appeared as the lead in Leabet el hob (The Game of Love) – for which he received Best Actor at the Alexandra International Film Festival. He also appeared in Tamer El-Bustani's independent short film: Qutat Baladi (Stray Cats). In the same year he was introduced to English speaking audiences in the role of Gabe Hassan in the American/Canadian production Civic Duty, It premiered at Tribecca film Festival in New york, and nominated at the Cairo International Film Festival 2007, his performance created a lot of attention to his talent and since then was often described by media as the next Omar Sharif.
In a review of In the Heliopolis Flat, Mohamed El-Assyouti of Al-Ahram Weekly noted a tendency for Abol Naga "to have been type-cast as the middle-class romantic star co-lead in almost all his films this year". His subsequent portrayal of Farid in the crime mystery Kashf Hesab gained him more positive critical attention. The same year, Abol Naga played the lead Ez in the action/thriller/drama Agamista. In 2008, he portrayed Ramez in the comedy Habibi Naeman. In 2009, he appeared as a lead character in One-Zero and then produced and appeared as the lead in first-time director Ahmad Abdalla's Heliopolis as Ibrahim. In 2010, he continued the working relationship by starring in and co-producing Abdalla's second film: Microphone. Originally due for mainstream release in Cairo on January 26, 2011, the film was re-released after the protests in Tahrir Square and won numerous awards and gained regional and worldwide acclaim.
Naga has a record of being present at international film festivals, as a performer or a jury member. In 2009–2010, attended 12 international film festivals including the Venice Film Festival, Toronto's TIFF, Vancouver's VIFF, Cairo's CIFF, Abu Dhabi's ADIFF, Doha Tribeca Film Festival, London's BFI, and Thessaloniki FF, inviting him either as a jury member or as an actor in his award-winning movies "Microphone", "One-Zero" or "Heliopolis".
In an interview in 2010, Abol Naga said, "From the industry side, my biggest challenge is to find original roles".
Naga achieved a historical winning of all important Best Actor Awards offered in Egypt in 2014(Egypt's National Film Festival, Film Society Festival for Egyptian Cinema, Egyptian Catholic Center for Cinema Festival) for his role in "Villa 69" as well as winning The Best Actor award (SILVER PYRAMID) from The prestigious Cairo International Film Festival for his role in the Palestinian submission to the OSCAR's "Eyes of a thief" among other regional Best Actor awards, in the same year, he also won several regional awards for his incredible portrayal of an older man Hussein in "Villa 69" including the Best Actor Award from Festival du Cinema Africain Khouribga, Morocco (Khaled is the Lead Actor & Executive-Producer)
Theatre Naga's theatre work started in 1989 with his university plays at The Department of Theatre, Drama and Music of the American university in Cairo, his work as a theatrical actor included a variety of roles; in some instances like Mahfouz-yat (1990) and Two Underground (1994) he has played more than one role in a single production, in the production of Lionel Bart's musical Oliver!, he played Bill Sikes as well as worked as an assistant director to Walter Eyesslinck, He collected few awards as an actor and director of varsity plays.
In 2010, he became involved as the filming director of the student play production of The BuSSy monologues – "True stories about young men and women in Egypt".
On Saturday 13 April 2013, the play written by Nassim Soleimanpour, White Rabbit Red Rabbit that was performed by an array of A-list actors around the world, was performed for the first time in Arabic in Cairo by Naga, who knew nothing of the play before he stood on the stage, as it is an experimental play; "This was a role for which I was prepared the most; you are always instructed not to do any preparation for the role [before reading the script]," said Abol Naga. The actor then revealed what intrigued him most about the play: "I liked that the meaning of the play is buried within the script, and I was unveiling it [as I read] with you. Sometimes I repeated the statements I thought were important," explained Abol Naga.
In September 2013, in a stage play reading in Arabic; Cancelled, Khaled Abol Naga takes on the lead role of Hassan, the director, and doing an impersonation of a talented, kind hearted and easily irritated director-professor who loves his students, but constantly criticizes them and the entire generation to which they belong.