Do we like Omar Sharif Jr.?
Our score: 8 out of 10. A clean record on harm and a long run of advocacy and fundraising, but the record is thin on recent years and on the planet.
Omar Sharif Jr. was born in Canada, into one of the most famous names in Arab cinema. He is the grandson and namesake of the Hollywood star Omar Sharif. He studied at Queen's University and the London School of Economics, then went into acting and writing.
He has put his name to things with a cost attached. In April 2019 he publicly challenged Brunei's sultan over the country's new stoning law, with a pointed, dark-humoured offer to be executed second if the sultan threw the first and last stones. He has also served as a national spokesperson for GLAAD and championed Iraqi refugees at the UN.
His recent work points the same way. In 2022 he became chief advancement officer at Holocaust Museum LA, leading fundraising and a campus expansion. He also joined the Israeli rom-com series Beauty and the Baker as a gay Hollywood agent of Palestinian descent. Beyond that role, the work he has taken keeps pointing at empathy between communities.
The good stuff is real. He won Attitude's Inspiration Award in 2016. He has fundraised for the Academy Museum, the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation and the Motion Picture & Television Fund. He is also modest about it, saying true activists are the people doing the day-to-day work on the ground.
The gaps are honest ones. Nothing new on him lately turned up: no court cases, no allegations, no controversy, and not much recent news either. Searches also found nothing on his views about the climate. So it is a strong record that is a few years old.