With his European features and Olympic champion like physique, one could easily mistake him for a Hollywood movie star or an Olympic champion. However, he is Tamer Hagras the pure Egyptian movie star who, over the last two decades, played dozens of roles in Cinema and on the TV screen.  During his career, Tamer always stayed fit and active, maintaining a great physique and preserving youthfulness in body and spirit. 

Tamer reveals some of his healthy and active lifestyle secrets to his fans exclusively in Sports & Fitness magazine. Continue reading to learn more about this month’s Sports & Fitness ambassador, Tamer Hagras.             

Tamer was born in London when his father was working in the Egyptian diplomatic service. He moved around a lot, living in London, Paris and New York before settling in Cairo. “I started my career by modelling and advertising,” Tamer said, “as I loved acting, media and advertising from day one, I engaged in acting activities during high school and also studied professional advertising at the university; I began to gain national and regional fame in modelling. As soon as I graduated from collage I started my own business, establishing an advertising agency.

“Volcano of Anger was my first step in fulfilling my passion and dream; acting.”

Tamer continued, “I had been chosen to play the leading role in the movie Volcano of Anger, which focused on the Palestinian struggle. My performance in this movie caught the attention of the acting legend, Adel Imam who cast me as his son in the record breaking movie, The Danish Experience.  

“During my acting career I never got away from my second passion; sports. The credit for that goes to my mother. She introduced sports to me when I was five years old and she insisted and persisted in making sports a part of my healthy life style and to help me become the sportsman I am today. She succeeded! Thank you Mama, as sports and fitness has affected my entire life and career tremendously and in a way is a prime reason I am the actor I am today. 

“Swimming was the first sport I started to practice at five years of age and I highly recommend all mothers introduce swimming to their beloved kids as early as they can. Research shows that swimming could be introduced to kids as early as 1 year old. I quickly mastered swimming and water polo and I become the captain of my team for years; we won first place in a few national and regional competitions and I was awarded most valuable player awards too.

“Along with swimming, I am exploring and practicing other sports and fitness activities such as gymnastics, cycling, jogging, tennis, squash and, of course, boxing. Boxing was what I practiced for my role in the movie, The Danish Experience. I was a professional boxer and as Adel Imam knew I boxed, he asked me to play this role. It’s important to project a positive consistent image of a sports character to the audience watching a movie in order to work on their enthusiasm subconsciously towards exercise and being active.

“Physical fitness is the key to mental and emotional well being. My family and I live a healthy balanced life because of that statement,” Tamer remarks. “As a young family we are working hard to keep our kids healthy and active. Tamara and Tala, my two lovely daughters, inherited the passion for sports and fitness from me and my lovely wife, fitness expert Mirale. Mirale is a certified personal trainer, aerobics instructor and Zumba instructor.  Due to Mirale’s extensive knowledge of fitness and weight management we are living that statement; even my 6 year old dog “Diego” takes advantage of our lifestyle as he would partner me during jogging or cycling sessions.         

“Cycling is one of my passions and interests in sport. It's so uplifting and gives me such a sense of freedom. I cycle ten to twenty kilometres daily either first thing in the morning or just before sunset and I cycle a rough-terrain, mostly uphill. My family, neighbours and friends have a fleet of bikes which we use to go cycling from time to time and that is important because we motivate and push each other to excel.”

Unlike the myths saying that cycling improves only cardiovascular capacity, Tamer is aware that cycling affects both the cardiovascular as well as the skeletal muscular systems and improves the strength and agility of most of the body’s major and minor groups of muscles, joints and ligaments and that is what makes cycling an amazing sport to practice.         

Tamer, like all Egyptians, is dreaming of a brighter future for Egypt in business and on a personal level, which is why we saw Tamer in the 30^th of July demonstrating in Tahrir square for a better future for Egyptians.

“On a business level, I wish Egyptian films and the cinema industry in general, would penetrate the global market as the Americans did and as for my personal dream, as any actor I am dreaming of reaching the top of the world; I wish to act in one or more of the Hollywood movies with “Brad Pitt”, “my role model”.  I do admire Brad Pitt as he always stays in great physical shape.

As a Sports and Fitness ambassador I wish for a more health conscious system and creative ideas, most importantly supported by our Egyptian and other Arab governments. Ideas such as public parks with free outdoor gyms or obstacle courses, more cycling roots and jogging paths all over our streets and this, I believe, is a major neglected aspect which we need to correct, especially in our beloved Egypt.

Also, as a Sports and Fitness ambassador, Sports & Fitness Magazine appreciates the time and effort that Tamer takes in promoting health and fitness in Egypt and for taking the time out to give us this interview and dedicate it to the magazine’s readers to inspire them to live a healthy active life style. We end by quoting Tamer:

“Physical fitness is a key to mental and emotional well being”,