Mena Massoud: Age, Heritage, Career, Full Bio

Mena Massoud is an actor and voice artist who is most known for playing the titular character of Walt Disney’s modern remaking of musical fantasy movie “Aladdin”. Aladdin may have made Massoud a household name but there are many talking points besides Aladdin. Here are all the facts you need to know.

Mena Massoud – age and heritage

Mena Massoud was born in Cairo, Egypt in September 1991. He is the third of three kids among two sisters. He was born into a Coptic Orthodox Christian Home. When he was three years old, his parents immigrated to Canada because ” things were getting a little too dangerous”. Massoud grew up in Markham, Ontario which he now calls home town; Mena attended St. Brother André Catholic High School.

Massoud has maintained a private life so that things like parents’ names, siblings’ names, and his relationship status are luxurious even the most investigative journalists cannot afford. But we know he is a vegan and also an ambassador for the “Speak Egyptian” initiative which seeks to keep Arab culture and identity among Egyptians in the diaspora.

Mena Massoud is 28 years old.

Mena Massoud – career

Mena Massoud made his acting debut in 2011 when he played the role of Al Qaeda No. 2 in one episode of the thrilling TV drama “Nikita” on The CW. He played various voices in the Naif Al-Mutawa animated series “The 99”. Singular and small episodic roles followed. In 2005, he made his movie debut in the film “Let’s Rap”. We went on to appear in “Ordinary Days” and “Run the Town”. Then it happened – “Alladin”.

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In March 2017, the producers of “Aladdin” began auditions for actors for the roles of Aladdin and Princess Jasmine. They concluded this task in July 2017 after auditioning more than 2000 actors and actresses and announced Massoud as Aladdin and Naomi Scott as his opposite. Mena got the role because the producers wanted a new-comer in the role of Aladdin as against someone like Dave Patel who has been acting since 2007 or Riz Ahmed who has been a popular actor and Emmy-award winner.

Mena Massoud did not disappoint as Aladdin. And it was said that he foresaw the movie going on to make one billion dollars in the box office.

He struggled to land roles after Aladdin

Mena Massoud’s biggest credit so far was as the titular character in the live-action remaking of the cartoon “Aladdin”. Aladdin was released in May 2019 it brought little-known Massoud worldwide fame. The boy from Egypt is going to become a sensation, many said and this not as a prediction. It is granted. Big successes beget big successes. Yes, after the success of “Aladdin” hit more than one billion dollars in the box office, you would be forgiven for expecting that the main actors Mena and Scott Naomi should be beseeched with phone calls for rules. Well, it turns out that this is not the case with Massoud. In an interview with The Daily Beast in December 2019, he opened up on his situation.

“I’m kind of tired of staying quiet about it. I want people to know that it’s not always dandelions and roses when you’re doing something like Aladdin. ‘He must have made millions. He must be getting all these offers.’ It’s none of those things. I haven’t had a single audition since ‘Aladdin’ came out.”

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But why is this so? you may ask. And we will not play the race card. We will just try to be objective for once but even Massoud himself suggests this, saying, “At this point in my career, being a visible minority in this industry still affects me. The competition may be less, some people would say, but the amount of work to be had is less as well.” If we refuse to toy this path and we have good reasons not to, after all, the system gave him his major break, the first reason we could think of as to why he hasn’t gotten other credits is that he may not have been good enough in the eyes of filmmakers.

Or he may have been too good, so good that many casting directors just assume he wouldn’t fit into a modern setting far from jumping over buildings and dressing in heavy medieval Arabian outfits. It has happened before, actors get into character and kills a role with a classic finesse that they become the character’s alter ego, so much that casting directors struggle to see them as any other character besides that. If this is the case with Massoud, he would struggle for a while. It is just a couple of months after “Aladdin”. One good role as anything else will help put Aladdin another step behind.

For now, Mena Massoud is brooding over his situation and concludes that he has learned something from “Aladdin”, one thing – never get ahead of yourself.

Net worth

Aladdin may have joined the billion dollars club of movies but Mena Massoud didn’t get paid up to 0.1 percent of that figure. In fact, less than 0.5 seems like the kind of payment that would have come to him. Massoud is not Will Smith. But the actor is still a rich man in his own rights. His net worth is variously put at two million dollars.

Mena Massoud is 1.73 meters or 5 feet 8 inches tall.

Image source: Mamesita