“I have always been an actor in myself”: born in Auch, Jamal Antar conquers Los Angeles

If we ask him what he always wanted to do in life, Jamal Antar immediately answers: actor. And if the American dream continues for the Auscitain who has been living in Los Angeles for ten years, it hasn’t been easy every day.

His perseverance, his bagou, his charm too, allowed him to land three new contracts for this year 2025 which already promises to be bright. “I’m first going to film a reality TV show. The aim of it is to meet foreigners who have settled in Los Angeles and who have succeeded,” smiles the forty-year-old. Then two feature films with the distributor AMC.

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Born in Auch in 1976, Jamal Antar only spent the first two years of his life in the Gascon capital, before growing up in Toulouse, in the Faourette district. But he maintains strong family ties here.

If he quickly reviews his younger years, with a simple “I didn’t like my childhood very much”, he undoubtedly remembers the turning point when he was 25 years old. “It was my first trip to Los Angeles. I fell in love with this city. I always had an actor in me, and I promised myself I would do my best to come and live here,” he says.

“Famous and Savage”

After several trips back and forth between the South-West and California, it was in 2014 that Jamal Antar settled permanently in the City of Angels. From small jobs to small jobs, from struggles to disappointments, he landed contracts here and there as an extra, before changing category and obtaining more important roles.

In 2020, he also launched into publishing and created his magazine, “Famous and Savage”. A quarterly focused on fashion and design, but which also contains portraits of actors, musicians, producers, etc. “It was covid, and I’m not Brad Pitt. The roles were rare, we had to bounce back,” he maintains.

A success, since “Famous and Savage” is distributed in several tens of thousands of copies.

“And today, everything is accelerating. So I have this reality show about foreigners in Los Angeles, where it will be about my life as an actor and the magazine. The two films that will follow are both under the responsibility of Hector Echavarria It was a mutual friend who introduced us during a casting, he liked my energy, what I exuded. One of these two films will be with Eric Roberts, the other with. Steve Bauer (“Manny” in Scarface). It’s incredible,” he enthuses.

A script in writing

With an Instagram account with 1.6 million followers, Jamal Antar intends to continue his road to fame. And develop new projects. “There, I am writing a film with Pascal Jacquet. This film is being prepared in collaboration with Fabien Martorell, a French director also based in Los Angeles.”

Fabien Martorell has already signed a feature film for Netflix, ‘Collision’, released in 2022. A second feature film, ‘City of Gold’, has just been delivered and should be broadcast soon. Both films take place in South Africa.

“This new project with Jamal will also be an ‘action crime’, the story of which takes place between Los Angeles and Marseille. The writing must be completed, then it will be time to propose the project to producers, perhaps be at Netflix. A French producer could also be interested, being as optimistic as possible, we can hope to start filming in September of this year, otherwise in January 2026.

Los Angeles in feu

But the news for Angelines today is also and above all the violent fires which have just ravaged part of the American cinema capital. These did not worry Jamal Antar. “For three days, it was madness. Black smoke covered the sky, we could no longer see the sun, it was completely dark. But at home, we were safe. There, today, things rarely come back gradually returning to normal,” he describes.

Because, to hear him, this chaotic start to 2025 for his favorite city will not change anything in the beautiful year that is opening up before him.