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#Kausar Mohammed on Her Career and Queer Muslim Representation

“Kausar Mohammed on Her Career and Queer Muslim Representation”

American actress Kausar Mohammed is fighting for a much-needed change when it comes to diversity and representation in Hollywood. The UCLA alumna’s voice can be found on shows like Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous and The Pretenders, but viewers can also spot her on The Flash and CW’s 4400. A queer Muslim writer, Mohammed also wrote and starred in The Syed Family XMAS Eve Game Night, which premiered at TIFF in 2021. Outside of acting, she works with SHIFT to actively advocate for an equitable future.

Ahead of the new release of the final season of Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous on July 20, MovieWeb has discussed with Kausar her career and activism so far.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

Fighting to Uplift BIPOC Voices

MovieWeb: You’ve had roles on Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous and The Flash recently, which is incredible! You’re also a team member at SHIFT, a consulting company on racial and gender equality. Tell us a little about how you’ve come to this point as an activist and actor.

Kausar Mohammed: To me my work in TV/Film and with SHIFT is connected to each other. Both are about centering and giving a voice to femme and queer BIPOC and People of the Global Majority voices. SHIFT provides JEDI (justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion) consultation and training for various organizations, corporations, and campuses. SHIFT was started at the height of the #MeToo movement in 2017. I remember being on set for a project when the news about Weinstein came to surface and everyone was stunned. Looking around me there were faces of folks who had wanted to be able to talk about consent, the impact of community trauma, but who maybe didn’t have the tools or the safe space to do so.


I realized the conversations that I had been equipped to have through artivism spaces I had been in in college were hard to find anywhere else. So, along with two brilliant women I knew, Natalie Bui and Veline Mojarro, we started SHIFT. Our intention is to uplift the voices of Black, Indigenous, People of Color, femme folks, artists, survivors, queer people front and center around discussions of consent and anti-white supremacy work. It’s through my work with SHIFT that I’ve realized my mission to create stories that center narratives of joy and solidarity for BIPOC and queer people. And how I want to do it by embedding values of community care on and off set in the process.

MovieWeb: The fifth and final season of Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous is coming out soon! What can we expect from this season and your character?


Kausar Mohammed: I am so excited for it to be released on July 21st. After having seen our main characters grow so much in the past four seasons we REALLY get to see how their friendships, growth, and ability to run for their lives is put to the test. Particularly for the character I voice, Yaz, what I can say is that we see her tap into a side of herself that she didn’t even know she had in her.

Related: Why Ms. Marvel Is the Muslim Representation We Need in 2022

Creating Queer Muslim Spaces in Hollywood

MovieWeb: You wrote and starred in The Syed Family XMAS Eve Game Night, which premiered at TIFF 2021. It truly is a groundbreaking short film in terms of representation. What inspired the story, and what was the process of creating it like?

Kausar Mohammed: The story was inspired by well, real life! I am the baby of two older sisters whom I love very very much so introducing them to my girlfriend for the first time was terrifying. I introduced them around the holidays and I remember all these nightmares coming up about the ways it could go wrong. And some of the scenes of the short were born out of those nightmares! And of course, none of those things even actually happened because both my sisters and partner are lovely lovely people. But I had to get them out of my brain. Also – the story came to me at a point where I was really struggling with holding my queer identities along with my South Asian and Muslim identities. I needed a happy ending for my main character where they get to hold on to their queerness and their family because I felt like I hadn’t seen it anywhere else yet. And maybe if I could see it on screen, I’d have a visual to manifest towards for myself.


MovieWeb: Rumor has it we might be seeing more of the short film—but instead adapted for television. Are we potentially seeing more of these characters in the near future?

Kausar Mohammed: Fawzia Mirza was the director on TSXEGM and I am excited to say we are continuing our collaborations in various different ways. On another note, she is not only an amazing director/writer but a wonderful human being that I’m so happy to work with. So, you’ll be seeing a little the different things we’re up to soon.

MovieWeb: The Syed Family XMAS Eve Game Night exposes a large gap in Hollywood when it comes to having female Muslim (let alone LGBTQ+ Muslim women) and non-binary characters. As a person of color who has had to navigate the entertainment industry in spaces where these characters historically do not exist organically, what challenges have you faced?


Kausar Mohammed: Absolutely. Muslims are 24.7% of the world’s population. And a study from the Pillars Fund in 2021 shared that out of a study of 200 popular films, only 1 of them were of queer male Muslim character. And then on top of that, representations of queer BIPOC folks on TV is also stark. I feel so grateful to have played characters like Soraya on 4400 or even Farha on East of La Brea that powerfully represent Muslims (and even Muslim Queer women). But I feel like there certainly are challenges and extra labor… labor that I know other non-white, non-hetero actors have to go through. From advocating for authenticity of your character because there’s not someone of your actual identities in the writers room to having difficult conversations if a queer female scene is being shot through a male gaze. You could even throw on unpaid language translations to being asked how to tie a hijab (which, as a non-covering Muslim, I am not good at!). So against this backdrop – its not important to me that people always get it right – but that who I work with is open and willing to have conversations and learn. Representation isn’t treated as a favor or a dog treat handed out to people from historically marginalized background, but instead treated as the powerful tool that it can be to combat patriarchy, homophobia, and Islamophobia.

MovieWeb: What would your dream role be? To add onto that: kind of story would you like to write/star in?

Kausar Mohammed: I want to be a villain in a fantasy movie. Bellatrix Lestrage is major dream for me. I want to write/star in projects that place folks of my identities in places that they weren’t allowed in before. Like give me a South Asian lead in 1920s U.S. Prohibition era or a Pakistani cowboy (hmm, cow woman?) in a Western! Something funky!

MovieWeb: You’ve got a long career ahead of you, but what have been some of your favorite moments so far?

Kausar Mohammed: Well, one favorite moment was certainly getting to wear the Fast Track super suit!

MovieWeb: Finally: what’s next for you?

Kausar Mohammed: I’m working on developing more of my own TV/Film projects – from creating more with Fawzia Mirza (the director of The Syed Family Xmas Eve Game Night) to my all South Asian sketch comedy team, The Get Brown. So I’m excited to get to work on all that!

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