The screen may know her as Habiba from La Totfe’ Al Shams (Don’t Let The Sun Set), Mariam from Ritsa, or Khadiga from Masar Egbary (Mandatory Path), but here, in the quiet between takes in her caravan on the set of her new show, Jad Jadid (Something New), May Elghety is something even more extraordinary: human. With a presence that’s both regal and grounded, she carries the grace of old-world cinema and the fire of a woman deeply in tune with her time. A psychology graduate with a passion for the planet and a voice that uplifts women, Elghety’s beauty isn’t just in what you see — it’s in how she sees the world. There’s a warmth in her presence with a quiet energy that doesn’t demand the spotlight, yet gently pulls you in. She speaks the way she acts: with intention, soul, and grace. Enigma’s Reham Adel had the chance for a warm chat with May Elghety and between gentle laughs, Elghety opens up about her journey—from Cairo sets to global screens, from childhood roles to womanhood, and from solitude to love.
Born in 1998 into a family of creatives, Elghety could have easily walked the well-paved path of artistic inheritance. But her journey, as it turns out, was far from scripted. “I actually wasn’t interested in acting at the beginning,” she admits. Her debut came not from ambition, but necessity as she filled in child actor roles that no one else could quite fit. And yet, like all true artists, her calling found her. Through music, through art, through the quiet observation of life’s emotional layers, acting became less of a family profession and more of a personal evolution. It wasn’t inherited. It was discovered.
It’s this nuanced origin story that explains the striking emotional maturity in Elghety’s performances. Whether she’s embodying the grief-stricken Asmaa in Kamla or the quietly resilient Mariam in Ritsa, her characters never feel like portrayals, they feel like people. Real ones. Flawed, fragile, and painfully familiar.
What fuels this authenticity? A deep and genuine fascination with psychology. “Psychology helps me dig deeper than what’s on the page,” she says. “I love exploring a character’s inner conflicts, traumas, attachments… It turns every role into a puzzle I get to solve.” That analytical lens gives her an edge. She doesn’t just act—she investigates. And in a cinematic world often addicted to spectacle, Elghety offers something far rarer: truth.
This is perhaps why her performances, though subtle, leave such a lasting impact. Her acting has a magnetic quietness. She credits this balance of restraint and power to a blend of old-world elegance and modern fearlessness. Icons like Faten Hamama, whose performances were “masterful in their silence”, continue to shape her artistic sensibility. But it’s global heavyweights like Cate Blanchett and Helena Bonham Carter who embolden her to take risks, to channel eccentricity, to honour the peculiar alongside the poetic.
Elghety is not afraid of emotional intensity nor is she intimidated by the vastness of genre. She’s danced between psychological drama and sci-fi animation with an ease that suggests a performer not chasing labels, but feeling. Her voice work in Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, a futuristic African sci-fi anthology produced by Disney+, challenged her to relinquish physicality and distil performance into voice alone. “It was oddly liberating,” she reflects. “You have to channel everything through your voice. I learned to play with rhythm, breath, and emotion in a new way.”
Jewelry: El Mawardy
Makeup: Sandra Magdy
Hairstylist: Islam Zaki
Her curiosity knows no borders—geographical or creative. Due Dating, her first international feature, pushed her into new cinematic territory, both stylistically and culturally. “The international setting challenged me to step into a broader context,” she says. The experience not only expanded her range but also deepened her sensitivity to the cultural codes embedded in storytelling—something many actors twice her age have yet to master.
But make no mistake: Elghety’s choices are anything but random. Her compass points to characters who are, above all, real. “They don’t have to be perfect or even likeable—just honest and a bit complex.” Whether she’s navigating the subtle tremors of grief or the full-scale fallout of human contradiction, she’s drawn to what lies beneath the surface. “If I can understand what drives them and there’s something honest and authentic to unpack there, that could even challenge the way I think or feel or do the same to others, then I usually want to explore them.”
If there’s one word that sums up May Elghety’s current chapter, it might just be grounded. In the whirlwind of career highs and globe-spanning shoots, she recently embraced a milestone far more intimate—marriage.
“It’s added a new sense of grounding,” she reflects. “I feel more connected to myself, which naturally affects how I work.” There’s no grand reinvention here, no celebrity epiphany wrapped in PR gloss. Instead, Elghety speaks of love as a quiet evolution—one that’s made her more present, more curious, and more patient, both with herself and the characters she chooses to embody.
Married life, she says, has been its own kind of classroom. “Acting teaches you to access emotions,” she notes, “but marriage teaches you to live with them in real time.” Vulnerability, compromise, and radical honesty aren’t just personal lessons—they’ve begun to bleed into her craft, deepening her portrayals and making the invisible emotional threads more tangible on screen.
If her own love story were turned into a film, she imagines it as a “romantic dramedy—equal parts laughter and heart,” helmed by none other than a blend of Richard Curtis and Nadine Labaki. Personal, messy, and disarmingly real. It’s a fitting self-description for someone whose life and work resist tidy categorisation.
Now, Elghety is stepping into her boldest cinematic territory yet: The Mummy reboot. And no, this isn’t another nostalgia-fuelled rehash of 90s desert camp. With Lee Cronin, best known for his terrifying vision in Evil Dead Rise, at the helm, this new iteration leans hard into horror and unease.
“I can’t disclose any information about the character or plot,” she teases, “but I can say this: it’s nothing like the earlier films. Lee is cooking something very dark and terrifying.” For a self-proclaimed horror lover, the opportunity is a dream realised—one that’s pushed her to embrace new creative discomforts and explore the genre’s emotional depth.
However, there’s more at play here than genre experimentation. As an Egyptian actress stepping into a franchise long defined by Westernised visions of Ancient Egypt, Elghety understands the cultural weight she carries. “For so long, our stories have been told without us through filtered or simplified lenses,” she says. “So just being part of a project that touches on Egyptian culture feels incredibly meaningful.”
For her, the role is more than a casting—it’s a statement. It’s a foot in the door for future generations of Arab artists and a small but significant correction in an industry still learning how to centre authenticity. “There’s so much richness to share,” she adds. “And we’re just getting started.”
Though she keeps the specifics of her character close to her chest, she hints with a sly smile: “She’s not easily defined. There are shades to her that shift depending on the moment.” In other words: expect the unexpected.
In the broader cultural conversation, Elghety is acutely aware of the misconceptions that still shroud Egyptian and more broadly Arab women. “There’s a tendency to put us in boxes,” she says. “You’re either traditional and conservative or rebellious and daring. But we’re all many things at once.”
It’s a dichotomy she’s determined to dismantle. Through her work, she hopes to illuminate that grey space—the messy, contradictory beauty of real women. “We’re complex. We’re layered. And we deserve to be seen that way.”
That complexity is something Elghety herself embodies, especially as her career bridges cultural worlds. From Cairo’s indie scene to London’s sound stages, she’s learning that standing out doesn’t require assimilation. “I used to feel I had to blend in,” she admits. “But now I realise that leaning into my roots is what makes me stand out.”
Looking ahead, Elghety is laser-focused on the kinds of stories that still haven’t been told especially in Middle Eastern cinema. She’s hungry for narratives that break the mould: female-led coming-of-age tales, bold explorations of mental health, and horror that springs from local folklore rather than imported myths.
“There’s a whole world waiting to be told,” she says, her voice lighting up. One story she’s particularly drawn to? A young Arab woman navigating power in a world that underestimates her not just politically, but emotionally and spiritually. “I think we’re hungry for stories that show us as agents of our own lives—not just reacting to the world, but reshaping it.”
And she’s already on that path. Her next role in the upcoming show Jad Jdid, directed by Salma El Kashef and penned by Reem El Kammash, is set to push her even further into that emotional terrain. “It’s a very challenging role and I think it will leave people wondering,” she hints. The show, produced by Kino Films, promises to be a high point in an already stellar year.
But Elghety’s ambitions don’t stop in front of the camera. “I’m actively looking into producing in the near future,” she reveals, with a quiet confidence. “To help bring new stories to life and support underrepresented voices.” Directing, too, sits on the horizon—a longer-term dream, but a very real one.
As our conversation draws to a close, one final question hangs in the air: What kind of legacy do you hope to leave?
Her answer is as thoughtful as everything that’s come before. “I’d love to be remembered as someone who helped expand the way Arab women are seen—on screen and off. If I can open a door for someone, shift a narrative, or make one young girl feel seen, that would mean the world to me.”
With wisdom that stretches beyond her years and a creative hunger that knows no borders, Elghety’s career reads like a coming-of-age story with no clear ending—only evolution. This is May Elghety: a storyteller, a soul listener, and a woman redefining what it means to shine.
Directing: Adham El Amir
Stylist/Art Director: Farah Wali
Photography: Youssef El Dera
Mangement & PR: Sizzle Company