1. Nelly Karim is an Egyptian actress, model, and former ballerina.
20 Facts About Nelly Karim
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Nelly Karim is the daughter of a Soviet Russian mother from Leningrad and an Egyptian father from Zagazig.
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Nelly Karim's family moved back permanently to Egypt in 1991 when her father died and she was 16.
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Nelly Karim started dancing as young child in the former Soviet Union, where she joined her first professional dance school and performed at the Odessa Opera House.
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Nelly Karim was performing at the Cairo Opera in 2000 as the prima ballerina when she was given an opportunity to appear on Fawazeer Ramadan, a popular Egyptian radio and television show that included dance routines.
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That same year Karim got her first acting role when Faten Hamama, one of Egypt's most famous actresses, saw Karim on Fawazeer Ramadan and picked her to play her daughter in the TV series, Wageh El Amar.
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In 2002 Nelly Karim landed her first film role in Youth on Air starring alongside Hanan Turk, another Egyptian ballerina turned actress.
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Similar to Turk, Nelly Karim got her first big break in a film directed by Youssef Chahine, among Egypt's most celebrated filmmakers.
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Nelly Karim appeared in the role of Rita Hayworth in his 2004 film Alexandria.
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In 2004 Nelly Karim played the role of a ballerina in Khaled Youssef's You're My Life, and won the Best Actress award at the Cairo International Film Festival.
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Nelly Karim described this period as one where she was "getting into acting gradually" but still dancing professionally; she stopped ballet in earnest around 2012 to focus entirely on acting.
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In 2010 Nelly Karim starred in Cairo 678, Mohamed Diab's first feature film, and their first project together.
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Nelly Karim won the Best Actress award for her role at the Arab Film Festival in 2011.
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Nelly Karim teamed up again with Zekry and Naoum in 2014's Women's Prison, another hit series, and an adaption of a play by Fathia al-Assal.
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In 2015 Nelly Karim appeared in Under Control a Ramadan series that received wide attention for addressing the issue of drug addiction, a topic rarely shown on Egyptian screens.
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Nelly Karim spent two months in a mental asylum preparing for the role.
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In 2016 Nelly Karim again teamed with Mohamed Diab in Clash a polarizing film in Egypt when it was released.
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In March 2025, Nelly Karim starred in the Ramadan series My Sisters.
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Nelly Karim married her second husband Hani Abuelnaga in 2004 and has two daughters from that marriage.
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Nelly Karim has an older brother, Ashraf, a doctor who migrated to the United States.