Boy orphaned by the Taliban is following in the acting footsteps of Daniel Craig
EVEN as a very young boy in war-torn Afghanistan, Tamim Sayed harboured a fanciful dream.
Every Friday he would go to a makeshift cinema and watch whatever film was available – usually a Bollywood movie or a grainy old classic.
And as he sat there enthralled in front of the screen, he determined that one day he would be a movie star.
Yesterday that dream came one stage nearer fulfilment.
Tamim – who fled to Britain after his mother and father were kidnapped and murdered by the Taliban – was awarded a prestigious scholarship to the same drama school that moulded the likes of Dame Helen Mirren, Daniel Craig, Sir Ben Kingsley and Daniel Day-Lewis.
He was chosen from thousands of hopefuls for a place at the National Youth Theatre, even though when he arrived in Britain eight years ago he spoke barely a word of English.
The 16-year-old GCSE pupil is now about to embark on auditions for films and West End plays – or, as he preferred to describe it: ‘ Walking in the footsteps of Hollywood superstars.’
When he found out he had won the scholarship, he said, ‘I just started shouting and jumping around the room.
‘I never thought someone like me would get into a place like that. It’s mad.’
The remarkable story of the orphan boy from a far- off land and his acting dream could easily have come from a plot for the kind of movie in which he now aspires to star.
Back home in Jalalabad, his cinema visits fuelled his ambition. ‘That’s where the acting bug started for me,’ he explained.
His father was a high-ranking officer in the Afghan National Army, which marked out the whole family as targets for the Taliban rebels.
In 2006 his mother and father were abducted and killed while Tamim, then an eight-year- old, was in school.
He was hidden by one of his uncles for a month before he managed to flee to England to live with a cousin and his family in the East End of London.
Compared with his lifestyle in Jalalabad, Tamim said, ‘it was a completely different world’.
He immediately started to learn English but struggled to adapt to the culture.
The foundation for his success was George Mitchell School in Leyton – which has the motto More Is In Me.
Teachers encouraged him to study hard in order to pursue his acting ambitions.
Despite the lifestyle differences, Tamim quickly made a shrewd assessment of the contrasts – a key, perhaps, to his admirable drive and endeavour.
‘It’s weird because I have found it hard to mix in with Western culture,’ he said.
‘A completely different world’
‘Because we do not have much technology at home in Afghanistan, kids would be out playing all the time.
‘Here, everyone just stays in and plays on computers.’
Tamim won a place at the NYT summer camp, an induction for the course, by impressing the assessors during a series of auditions with monologues from John McKay’s off-beat comedy Dead Dad Dog.
At first the modest teenager was reluctant to apply for the scholarship but was spurred on by his school drama teacher Annabel Rook.
‘A lot of our kids come from tough backgrounds and often don’t have the confidence to go after things like this,’ said Miss Rook, 28.
‘But once you help them believe in themselves, the transformation is incredible.’
Tamim confessed he was ‘very daunted’ by the prospect of trying for the scholarship against such fierce opposition.
‘Because I’m Asian and from Afghanistan, I was worried; you don’t see that many Asian Hollywood stars,’ he said.
‘I have faced racism outside the school in the past so I was worried about that too.
‘But Annabel was with me the whole way, helping with my monologue and telling me that I was good enough to do it.’
Tamim, who likes action movies and lists Gladiator as his favourite, will spend eight years with the National Youth Theatre.
Naturally, he hopes one day to appear in a Hollywood blockbuster opposite some of his acting heroes and heroines.
His favourite stars include Russell Crowe, Megan Fox and Natalie Portman.
Step one on that path to fame, however, is still to be taken.
Tomorrow, Tamim sits his drama GCSE exam.