Amrou Al-Kadhi

Amrou Al-Kadhi (born 23 June 1990) is a British-Iraqi writer, actor, drag performer, and filmmaker whose work primarily focuses on queer identity, cultural representation and racial politics.

Early life and education

Al-Kadhi was born in London to a tight-knit conservative Iraqi Muslim family. They were brought up in Dubai and Bahrain, before the family moved back to London. Al-Kadhi claims that discovering marine biology and quantum physics helped them understand their queer identity. Al-Kadhi has a twin brother.

In 2006, Al-Kadhi was awarded a two-year scholarship to Eton College, where they did their A-levels, then graduated from the University of Cambridge with a BA and MPhil in the History of Art.

Al-Kadhi's stage name is Glamrou. It was at the University of Cambridge that they discovered drag, organising events and becoming a "drag mother" to their fellow drag queens in the university's first professional drag band. While at Cambridge, they created and led the musical comedy drag troupe Denim, for which they co-wrote and performed in shows. More recently, they have left the troupe in order to concentrate on solo performance in a show called ''Glamrou: From Quran to Queen''.

Career

Films

Al-Kadhi's first acting role, at the age of fourteen, was in Steven Spielberg's film ''Munich'', where they played the role of an Islamic terrorist's son. They have commented that, as an Arab actor, they have been approached to play the role of a terrorist almost thirty times.

Al-Kadhi's feature directorial debut ''Layla'', with Film 4 and Fox Cub Films, premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. They have another film in development titled ''Oh, Molly'' with BBC Films and Sarah Brocklehurst Productions.

In 2021, Al-Kadhi appeared in the Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU) film '' Venom: Let There Be Carnage'' as a temporary host of the alien symbiote Venom after he separates from Eddie Brock.

Television

Al-Kadhi has three TV series in development: as writer and creator, ''Targets'', with BBC Drama, as star, co-creator and co-writer, ''Nefertiti'', a comedy series in development with Big Talk Productions, and as co-star, co-creator and co-writer, ''Beards'', in development with Playground Entertainment.

Writing

Al-Kadhi's autobiography, ''Life as a Unicorn: A Journey From Shame to Pride and Everything In Between'', was published in 2019 and tells the story of their estrangement from and final reconciliation with their mother and Islam. In 2020, the autobiography won the Society of Authors' Somerset Maugham Award.

They write a fortnightly opinion column for ''The Independent'', and a monthly column in ''Gay Times''. They have also contributed to '' GQ'', ''The Guardian'', ''Attitude'', ''CNN'' and '' Little White Lies''. Al-Kadhi writes on topics ranging from queer identity and Islamophobia to the philosophy of marine biology and film criticism.

Animal cruelty

In their memoir, Al-Kadhi describes how, at the age of thirteen, they developed a close identification with fish, which they call "warrior shape-shifters" in colourful clothing. "That’s how I feel on the inside," reflected Al-Kadhi as they looked at a fish tank. "In my soul, I’m that colourful; my sexuality, my gender – it’s free-moving, like in the tank. Maybe my soul doesn’t have any boundaries?" However, by the time they turned fifteen, they "developed a physical and psychological aversion to the tank". After a particularly vivid dream, Al-Kadhi tried to capture the attention of a pair of clownfish, "but they were swimming along happily together – just another couple who had found love – and suddenly the tank made me feel lonelier than ever". As a result, Al-Kadhi stopped feeding the fish and refused to clean the tank. Al-Kadhi goes on to describe, in gleeful terms, the death of the fish at their hands:

On a Friday evening after school, as I was sitting at my desk doing a timed English essay, I saw that one of my fish – a gaudy yellow pursed-lipped fish called a Yellow Tang – was floating rigid at the surface. I looked at it with the apathetic glaze of a brutal assassin. Within five minutes, my once prized Regal Tang – this is Dory from ''Finding Nemo'' – had also joined the afterlife. W''hat’s Allah doing to YOU, I wonder?'' Then I saw that my soft corals had rotted, their carcasses floating around the tank like the frozen bodies in the aftermath of the sinking of the Titanic. Within the space of thirty minutes, absolutely everything in there was dead. I put down my pen, and with the calm of someone who works at a morgue, flushed every fish and coral away, emptied the tank, and put pictures of the tank to sell on eBay. It was the final confirmation I needed – it was time for somewhere new.

In August 2022, Al-Kadhi wrote a column for ''The Guardian'' based on the fish incident. In it, they say that the sight of the fish "floating rigid on the surface" was "the final confirmation I needed – the tank no longer served me, and couldn’t be the heal-all balm I needed it to be".

Personal life

Al-Kadhi identifies as queer and non-binary.

Filmography

Film

Television

Stage

*2016, ''Denim Titanique''
*2016, ''Denim'', The Vault Festival
*2017, ''Denim: World Tour'', Underbelly, Edinburgh Fringe
*2018, ''The Denim Juniors'', Soho Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe
*2018, ''Denim: The Reunion Tour'', Soho Theatre
*2021-22: ''Glamrou: From Quran to Queen'', Soho Theatre

Books

*2019: ''Unicorn: The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen'' (4th Estate, HarperCollins UK)Hardback /
*2022: ''Life as a Unicorn: A Journey from Shame to Pride and Everything in Between''(4th Estate, HarperCollins UK)Paperback /

Awards and honours

In June 2020, in honour of the 50th anniversary of the first LGBTQ Pride parade, ''Queerty'' named Al-Kadhi among the fifty heroes "leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people". In 2020 Al-Kadhi won the Polari First Book Prize for their memoir ''Life as a Unicorn''.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kadhi, Amrou
Living people
1990 births
21st-century British LGBTQ people
British filmmakers
British LGBTQ journalists
British Muslims
British non-binary actors
British non-binary writers
British people of Iraqi descent
Film directors from London
Iraqi non-binary people
LGBTQ people from London
Non-binary drag performers
Non-binary journalists
Non-binary Muslims
Queer Muslims
Writers from London