It’s been weeks since Midterm aired its final episode, and Yasmina El Abd isn’t ready to move on. “I can’t really let go of Tia,” El Abd tells TN Magazine. “This is the first time that’s ever happened to me. I’ve never had this experience with any other character. Now, I see a camera and I immediately have to become her – which surprises me, considering how difficult she was to embody at first.”
She’s not alone in that attachment. The university-set Egyptian series has become something of a touchstone for younger viewers across the region, circulating widely online and settling into the shorthand of Gen Z audiences. For many, Tia is already inseparable from El Abd herself.
At 19, El Abd now finds herself in rare territory. Midterm is her first lead role, and it has accelerated her transition from scene-stealing supporting performer to a star willing to take on material many of her peers avoid.
It is a moment she recognises from watching one of her heroes. In 2019, Zendaya made a comparable leap with HBO’s Euphoria, choosing to meet a young audience at its most exposed through material that offered little protection if it failed.
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt anxiety in the way I felt while shooting Midterm,” El Abd says. “It was such a big risk to put my name on something so big, so long and so different.”
In Egypt, that kind of risk can carry real consequences. A series that pushes too far can trigger fierce online backlash, sometimes escalating into controversy that threatens entire careers. Even so, what mattered most to El Abd was moving beyond the safe bets that had begun to frustrate her.
“I was struggling to find roles that catered to my age group,” the actress explains. “It was either playing much older – which felt disingenuous and impossible to perform honestly – or much younger. I didn’t feel creatively fulfilled in any way.”
In some ways, El Abd feels like she reverse-manifested Midterm by convincing herself she’d never find anything like it. She’s never one to write down her goals – “I obsess over things, but I don’t want to jinx them” – but whenever anyone asked her what her dream role would be, she’d respond: anything that delves into the mental health struggles of young people, right down to their most uncomfortable truths. “In Middle Eastern homes, we don’t like to scratch past the surface of mental health,” she says.
Midterm, in turn, is precisely about what happens when those issues are ignored entirely – when people hide their true selves from those around them in order to be accepted. El Abd’s character Tia, as audiences discover in later episodes, is a manipulative, compulsive liar. While the reveal risks casting her as a villain, the series is imbued with enough empathy to make it feel more like a cautionary tale.
“Her entire plan was just based on not wanting to be alone,” El Abd says. “It came from insecurity and anxiety – which can trigger extreme ways of handling yourself and situations. It was all born in pure pain. Midterm is about not neglecting yourself when there’s an issue at hand.”
As happy as she has been that Gen Z feels seen in the material, that wasn’t her only hope. Quietly, she wanted parents to see it too – to understand the role they play, often unknowingly, in perpetuating those dynamics. To her surprise, that is happening as well.
“I was on a plane the other day and the stewardess told me she’d watched the show,” El Abd says. “She said it made her re-evaluate how she deals with her daughter. That’s the nicest feedback I’ve ever received – my dream scenario.
“There’s a huge lack of understanding and patience. It’s just: ‘Do this, do that, don’t talk back.’ It’s not a healthy relationship – and this is a global issue. So many of these problems are born in the home.”
Part of the reason El Abd has been able to blossom creatively – and into the woman she is becoming – is the relationship she has had with her parents.
“Having a family that understands, that has given me the space to try and figure myself out and supports me through it all, is everything to me,” she says.
Even so, growing up, there were parts of herself she kept private. While her family remembers her as a confident, driven child – particularly in light of her budding stardom – her inner world felt very different.
“I don’t think I was a very confident child,” El Abd says. “I had a kind of fake Disney arrogance, because I would copy whatever I saw on screen. I was always Sharpay Evans from High School Musical, reincarnated as an Arab girl with brown hair.”
“I was actually very shy,” she continues. “The only thing I felt confident in was anything to do with the performing arts. Whether I was watching a movie, listening to music, singing or dancing, I felt I had something special – and I couldn’t ever let that go.”
El Abd comes from a musical family – her father was a piano player for 45 years – and music has always been a constant presence. As acting became more demanding, it also became a refuge. “I can’t sit in silence,” she says. “I always need music or something playing in the background.”
However, the actress didn’t expect music to re-enter her life in quite the way it has. As part of Midterm, El Abd released a song, Damma, in December. She never anticipated a response – she was so sick during recording that the final release used her demo vocals. To her surprise, the track has resonated. For six weeks and counting, it has hovered near the top of Billboard’s regional charts, racking up millions of streams alongside the success of the series.
As intentional as El Abd has become about her acting career, the idea of adding “pop star” to her CV still feels abstract. As she considers what kind of musician she might want to be, she admits the prospect is overwhelming. “As an actor, you’re a blank canvas,” she says. “You have a director, a writer, a producer – they tell you where to go and what to do. And if it doesn’t go well, people understand it wasn’t all you.
“In music, there’s no distance. A musical artist needs an identity – through their sound, their wardrobe, their artistic direction. You need to know who you are and own it. And if a song is bad, they blame you. You need very thick skin to take that on. That’s all very scary for me.”
She thinks back to something Zendaya once said in an interview – that she feels comfortable on a film set because she’s hiding behind someone else, free to be as bold or strange as she likes.
“In music, you have to get to know yourself as a human being,” El Abd says. “You have complete creative agency. The most daunting part for me is trying to figure that out. I hate going into something without knowing what it is – and that’s exactly what music is like. It’s just you, the studio and yourself.”
As always, her family is encouraging her forward. “They’re all so excited about this,” she says. “They keep asking: ‘Why don’t you want to do it?’ And I’m just like: ‘I’m not ready.’ But now, with this success, they’re saying: ‘There’s nothing left to say – you just need to go for it.’ I think I’m scared of trying, but that’s a fear I need to push past. Maybe I’ll drop an EP,” she adds.
At times, it all feels overwhelming.
“It’s weird to be part of something so big at such a young age – to feel like the smallest fish in the biggest pond,” she says. “You have to be able to say ‘I’m here’, without being obnoxious. You have to fight for yourself without being rude or being told you have an attitude problem – which is huge in this industry.”
That, in part, is why she values having a family willing to help shoulder those pressures – allowing her to focus not only on the work, but also on the audience she made Midterm for.
“I feel like I’m gaining people’s trust,” she says. “That’s not something I take lightly. It makes me think: I earned it. Now I need to keep it.”
Photoshoot credits
Fashion Director: Sarah Maisey
Photographer: Lucie Sassiat
Photographer’s assistant: Anais Ramos
Producer: Caroline Bento
Stylist: Marie Cattiaux
Hair and make -up: Audrey Payet
Shot at: Studio Zero, Paris
Special Thanks: Lynn Bou Malham
Photo shoot created in partnership with Miu Miu
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