“I love to express my feelings on papers, However I am not a poet of course”

The Lebanese multitalented singer Carole Samaha is our Star for this issue. Carole adores her work and only thinks about how to present the best for  her fans and at the same time to satisfy herself artistically as she believes in one thing which is» to love what you do and to do what you love. Carole achieved a lot of successes during the past year and recieved several prestigious awards; she also met her second half and got married after a dreamy love story. She will tell us a lot about her new marriage, love, and work in this interview.

At first we would like to congratulate you and to know if your life has changed after marriage?
Thank you so much. Well my life truly changed after marriage but for the best of course. I feel more secured now, more stable, I don’t fear loneliness anymore, although I used to it before my marriage .But sometimes if I didn’t  have work, I started to feel lonely and missing something, but after marriage all these feelings had  gone away. So marriage to me was a true relief. Now my life is full and if I don’t have work, I have a lot of things to be done with my husband and in my house. Thanks God I am so happy and believe that those are my best days ever. But I have to say that if you don’t choose the right person, marriage could be like hell. Choice is the key word for marriage happiness. When I found the right person I took my decision, I am not a type of person who can just get married only for the sake of marriage. I would have rather stayed alone for the rest of my life than getting married to someone whom I don’t love. My husband Walid is such a sweet, kind-hearted, easy going person. We share a lot of things together and believe that respect and honesty are the most important factors to help our marriage to survive forever.

What about kids, are you planning to have kids?
Of course I do and I can’t wait to have kids. I am praying for God to have kids, but I just delayed this issue a little bit after my marriage because I was still working in my show” the lady Show” but now it is time and no more delays.

Moving to work, tell us about all the awards that you received lately, especially that we know that you received a plenty of them?
Thanks God, during the past year I received a lot of awards from different prestigious places. I received the MEMAward for the best clip of the year “Wahshany Belady”, and the Murex D’or Award for the best Arabic song and best Album”Ehsas”, as well as the World Music Award. The awards are so important to the artist as it makes you feel appreciated after the hard work and that your effort hasn’t gone in vain. It motivates you to do the best and keep up the good work. I was so happy this year with my awards especially that they came from Egypt, Lebanon, and even abroad. The award from Egypt meant a lot to me. I can call the past year, the awards’ year. I would like to add something, that it is not only the awards that tell you about your success, there are other important things as well. The fans and the audiences are the most important thing to the artist.

What about acting?
Well my beginnings were with acting. I graduated from acting & directing institute in Lebanon. I am originally a director. I acted a lot at theatre with Al Rahbanya, a lot of musical plays and they were all very successful. And my latest show on theatre was” The Lady Show”. It was a concert show, only singing and dancing. It was so modern and contemporary like the Broadway shows. People liked it so much. It was sold out every night for a whole month. And I hope to come and play it in Egypt. For TV, I have acted some series but I don’t enjoy a lot the TV work as it is very hectic and take long times. Also the success of any series doesn’t depend only on the actor or actress; it depends on a lot of factors, directing, editing, and timing of broadcasting and on which channels. So nothing is guaranteed in TV unlike theatre where everything depends on the actor and he/she receives the results on the spot. I love theatre so much.

I can’t have Carole Samaha with me and not talk about politics, are you optimistic about the current situation in the Arab World?
Well it depend on each country, for Egypt thanks God things went well with the presence of President SISI and the Egyptian people and I am so optimistic about Egypt and feel that Things will get much, much better. And Egypt’s stability means stability to a lot of other Arab countries. But the problem lies in some countries and its’ rulers and how they contributed in the conspiracy because of the inner conflicts in those countries and how they don’t love sincerely their countries and they are only seeking  their own interest and how to reach the chair of presidency. Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen are suffering from the leaders and also from the abroad conspiracy to terminate all the big armies in the Arab World, and we can see that clearly in Iraq and Syria. Anyway I hope the best for all Arab countries and that the leaders start to love their countries and seek its interest not theirs.

Tell us about your latest clip “Sahraneen”?
I love this song and clip and it was a bombshell to my fans to dance again in this clip as it has been long time since my last dancing clips. The dances were fresh, joyful, and young and full of energy. I shot the clip in Egypt with my favorite director Thierry Vergnes who filmed Egypt like never before, the people who watched the clip kept telling me “is this Egypt”. He used new techniques and thanks God the clip was a success. The song was composed by Mohamed Rahim and written by me.

Did you start writing your own songs?
Well writing is just a hobby to me, I love to express my feelings on papers, however I am not a poet of course, this feeling can come and go from time to time. And I hope people will like this experience as well.

At the end what would you like to say?
Thanks for this nice interview and selected questions, you covered it all.

“Thanks God, during the past year I received a lot of awards from different  prestigious places”

By: Dalia Mohamed  
Photos by: Toni Mjaes