Olympic Swimmer & UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador: Yusra Mardini – Survival, Hope, Storytelling, & the Power of the Human Spirit

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0:43Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+. Well, I'm very excited for you to be here, Yusra. Thank you. I'm excited to be here too. Thank you for taking the time. Of course. I had the pleasure of meeting you for the first time last June in Stockholm. Yeah. Listening to a band we both didn't know at the Brilliant Minds Summit. Yeah. Conference. Event. Yeah. One of those. One of those. I know that you do a lot of those things now. You attend, but you also speak publicly.

1:19Yeah. Yeah. You share your amazing story and beyond. and you're on a plane more than home more than home what's that like not nice no i mean obviously it's really cool to explore the world meet people i mean you just said we we met like this year which does not feel like it was this year a lot has happened but it's really cool to travel to meet with entrepreneurs, talents, people that like have insane ambitions. And then on the other hand to me, whether that's like normal people or athletes. Yeah. I miss being home for sure. But I think like everyone's like always like, oh, your twenties are for trying everything and going everywhere.

2:07And I'm like embracing that in a way. Um, but yeah, it's pretty tiring to be honest. and sometimes lonely because you have so many friends, but they're like all over the globe. So yeah, it's both positive and negative at the same time. Around the world with your host, the Stade Guy, we welcome you back to the Stade Guy podcast, sharing stories of excellence with those in the know for those who just know. You were sharing before we started rolling with the cameras, just a small glimpse into what all that craziness looks like. I'd like to paint a picture for the audience. You're taking a break from USC, the University of Southern California, where you've been on a full ride scholarship studying film.

2:53That's awesome. Taking a break from that is also cool. There's a lot of bragging rights there. You're doing public speaking. You're the youngest ever appointed Goodwill Ambassador for the UNHCR. UNHCR. UNHCR, I'm sorry. It's difficult, I know. It took me a few years. There's a lot of letters. The first two letters are the ones I recognize most. Yeah, it's a UN. UN. And you're doing lots to inspire people who come from lots of struggle, maybe people even who don't, and are inspired by all the amazing work you're doing now and all the amazing work you have done. So you're doing a lot. Yep. What's your favorite part?

3:33All of it. Yeah? Yeah. I think it's really cool to be able to understand that life is not black and white. I had to grow up at a young age, which gave me the ability to see things differently, see things in a creative way, I guess. Where I started doing public speaking because of my story, because of becoming a refugee and having to escape war. And slowly I realized that telling my story has so much power. And that power is not about business. It's about the human touch. It's about touching humanity and being able to, I know it's a big word to say, but it's like changing the world for the better.

4:22It's my main goal with everything that I do. So yeah, I started with storytelling, which is the main thing in my life. I love storytelling. I love being able to be close to anyone, basically. Like, I can be sitting in a room telling my story in Davos, and I can be sitting in a refugee camp telling my story. And I think that's beautiful. Yeah, I really do love public speaking, and I love being an advocate for refugees all around the world. To be completely honest, my favorite part, and will always be my favorite part, is swimming. Yeah. Like always. Yeah, I grew up swimming in Syria since I was three years old.

5:06And I basically retired, which is crazy to say because I'm 27. But yeah, I think it's the most fun I've ever had in my life. And it's obviously difficult. You learn from it. You grow from it. So I'll always be an athlete. Yeah. You've retired from swimming professionally. Yeah. But you still swim. So weird to say that. It's crazy. It's so weird. It's crazy. Because the way I describe how athletes or competitive athletes leave sports is like, even if it was their choice, it's not their choice. For me, I would have loved to swim until the end of time. But I wanted to study. And I wanted to focus on the Swimmers World Tour, the movie.

5:55and it wasn't possible for me to swim on a level where like I can compete at the world championships and olympics and you know when it's time to leave but it's like when you love it's like a marriage where you love the husband so much but you have to break up for some reason you know that's that's how I explain on good terms it's a loving relationship but like you cannot go back just I get it the first time I met you I told you how touched I was by the story that was told on your behalf Swimmers, the movie and how emotional that movie made me it's such an incredible movie and based on the follow up research and online scrolling I went through after the movie everyone does that it's like where's the real one what is she exactly and then meaning in real life I see there's a big part of you and your story they haven't told and lots they did very well of course as well I don't feel like I'm in the position knowledge wise to share the story on your behalf although I'd love to the sake of the podcast for those who may have not watched the film I'll pause now and say, pause this podcast and go watch the film.

7:21That's one. Let's say you still haven't.

7:27How may I best share that story with the audience? To sum up my story a little quick, I was born in Damascus, Syria. Both my parents were also born in Damascus, Syria. I grew up there and when I turned 13 the war started and I had to escape from my home and then I was a refugee inside of Syria before outside of Syria. Growing up I went to school and I loved swimming. Not in the beginning though. It was not love at first sight for sure but my dad was my coach which made it basically a must to become swimmer which now I love I have an older sister that's also also in the movie she's three years older than me I have a younger sister she's nine years younger than me so she's the baby of the family and the smartest in my opinion.

8:26And yeah, we had a very normal life up until the war. When the war started, I think the second year already of it, we lost our home. And we didn't know that for sure. But the area that I lived in was called Daria. It was one of the most affected areas from a very early stage. It was like on the suburbs of Damascus, the capital of Syria. So we tried to live in Syria for a few years. And it was really difficult because you'd go to school, there'd be bombings in the school. Like I had moments where I was like literally hiding under my desk. I had moments where I was swimming. That was in the movie.

9:10I don't want to spoil it. But when the missile hit in the pool, that was a real thing. You kept swimming. Basically, they were shouting that I get out and the teenager in me, I was like just walking, which was really bad. But yeah, they that happened for real. And a lot of things has happened. It got more expensive. It got more difficult. I left swimming for a whole year when I was like 14. And that year, like showed me how much I love swimming and that it wasn't for my dad that was actually swimming. after a year of like retiring at 14 I saw my team win a medal at like the Asian Games and I was crying I was like telling my mom I deserve to be there I want to be there like I'm nowhere near my dream so that was a like a period in my life where I was a teenager who had dreams hopes ambitions but because of what was happening in my country I feel I felt like I will never reach them like I'm like waking up every day putting in the work but will I ever get there so I go back to swimming and not even a year later me and my older sister we had a conversation we shared a room and we had a conversation we're like we should leave um and then we asked my parents and they said no I asked them again they said no like we asked them multiple times because obviously it's a very dangerous journey, refuging from Syria to Germany.

10:39We knew that we wanted to go to Germany because it was one of the safest places basically to refuge to. And the door was open, like Germany was still welcoming refugees at that point. So that point was 2015. A few weeks later, my dad gives up and he's like, if you find someone that can go with you, that I can trust, you can go. So we find his cousin and his other cousin's son. That was the same age as me. We used to hang out every weekend. And he goes, okay, we're doing this. And then in one week, we say goodbye to everyone we know. We say goodbye to everything we know. Whatever your thing, it could be anything.

11:23Canva helps you make that thing a thing. Canva is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design with our magic AI tool things. You can social media your thing, generate images or videos of your thing, make decks or presentations to show your thing. Whatever needs to be done for your thing, Canva can make it an even better and bigger thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing. So basically, I started this journey and we basically, you don't have a plan. it's mostly on your gut feeling the whole journey how old were you uh 17 17 yeah and my sister was 20 so and then my cousin uh my dad's cousin was 25 and then the younger one was my age so the journey starts with the plane from damascus to beirut beirut to uh istanbul and then from Istanbul, my dad's cousin starts, also my dad's friend was with us as well.

12:27So they start talking to smugglers because that's the only way. So basically we find a smuggler. The smuggler helps you basically go on a boat, on a dinghy, which is mostly overcrowded, which is mostly very dangerous because these boats are used multiple times. so you meet the smuggler at one point in istanbul and then he takes you with a bus and if you watch the movie you probably remember that that like we got in the bus all the curtains were closed you have no gps he he tells you no bathroom you don't go anywhere until we reach that point and that point was like five hours in a bus you don't know where you're going.

13:11So after that, you go on the island that you don't know what that is, but it's basically the closest island in Turkey to the closest island in Greece. That was Lesbos. We then get to the island. The smuggler tells you, oh, this is your boat. And then you go to the island, you realize there are thousands of refugees waiting. Like there are so many people waiting. We stayed on the island for three days. When you're on the island, you don't have access to a bathroom. You don't have access to anything you're sleeping on the floor basically we were very lucky we met like 30 people and these 30 people somehow we just became all friends and then the men started like staying awake all around women and women we slept in the middle and like we shifted all the time and then whoever had like a biscuit that we would all share it it was really yes it was one of the most heartbreaking experiences in my life but it was also one of the best experiences in my life basically after that you get on the boat usually it's a 45 minute trip and for us it was three hours and a half because the boat was ripped before we got on it after these three hours and a half you arrive on lesbos you go from greece to macedonia macedonia serbia serbia to hungary Vienna and then Germany the whole journey took 25 days wow yep sorry I'm just this is it's a lot so at age 17 you made it to Germany yep I assume making it to Germany is not this okay now all the problems are solved by any means it's a whole different I think there's a lot of relief from what I'm understanding from you to finally make it there after that journey.

15:04But once you made it to Germany, where were you arriving to? When you get to Germany, basically you don't decide which city you go to. Like when you are arriving, the police tells you where to go. So we arrived to Berlin. And we actually did not want to live in Berlin. We wanted to go to Hannover because we had a friend there. and we were basically forced to stay in Berlin because they decided we should stay in Berlin and I think that was really cool like I love Berlin now it's like my second home so yeah you arrive there and they take you to a refugee camp we stayed in a tent inside of the refugee camp because it was very overcrowded and yeah from there you start it's a very weird period because like you have grief because you just left home you have hope because you're gonna to go back home that's what you're thinking and then you have fear of the unknown of like what am i doing now like what's the next step i need do i learn german like am i staying long enough to learn german can i swim um what do i do now so that period you can't do anything basically because you're waiting for paperwork and paperwork in germany at that time was so it was really complicated because like sometimes you had to wake up at like uh 1 a.m and stay in line at 1 a.m until 8 a.m to enter that day to the place where you do all the paperwork it was insane and it's not like because of organization but because like the day that we entered Germany uh my sister and I uh 12 ,000 other refugees entered so it was a lot like it was the number was massive the first like few months were very weird because like whenever someone talked to me and they were like oh are you learning german i'll be like no i'm going home so i didn't like i couldn't it couldn't register in my mind that i like this is home and i was complaining because it was very cold so i wasn't used to like european cold and like clouds and stuff um but yeah like very quickly after um my sister and i like we met this egyptian translator and i was like yeah i'm a swimmer like i just went to the world championships when i was like in 2012 in turkey um i like swam international and national competitions and stuff he was like is this for real because a lot of people tell me they're athletes and they're not i'm like i i promise you test me out so he was so kind the next day we went to this uh swimming pool it's called Wasserfreund Spandau like the club very German so basically we go there and that's where I met my coach he's like yeah we're gonna test you out see if you can swim here go change and we're like we don't have swimming suits we just like refuged here like we don't have anything and he Sven was someone that's and still is someone that's very curious that even if he's like shocked to the core he would be very calm and be like of course like i'm gonna go get you suits and they made us feel like we're home even though like they don't know who we are or nothing so we do the swimming test and then after that like he was really surprised in a good way by the level by like the technique and everything and after that he's like where do you live now and i was like refugee camp and then he was like Like if you want to really train, because he asked me, what was your dream?

18:37I was like, I want to go to the Olympics. He did not even question that, not even once. I think he was so impressed that I couldn't even think of it at that time. Like it was a lot of trauma, a lot of fear, a lot of, but I was so sure of that dream that like, I'm going to get to it. I'm going to reach it no matter what's happening in my life. Like I was working out at the refugee camp and my sister was like, what are you doing? It's like working out. And she's like, why? I was like, I don't know. Like something told me that it's going to happen. So yeah, Sven and the club at the time, like after maybe only a month of staying in the refugee camp, they allow us to live in the club, the clubhouse of the swimming club, basically.

19:22So they had a house and it's funny because there are scenes of the swimmers that are filmed in the actual room I lived in. Wow. Literally. In the movie. Do you remember when I talked to my cousin and I give him headphones? Yes. And if you remember, that was in the room that I lived in. Wow. So they filmed in the actual location where we actually lived. We had bunk beds. Wow. Yeah, me and her. So, yeah, that's how everything basically started. You briefly mentioned earlier today that to you the word refugee. Yeah. And the feeling of being a refugee was always a feeling you hoped to be temporary.

20:12Yeah. Because you had this hope of going home and the hope that the state was only, okay, this is for now, but this is not who I am early on. And then you shared that that actually turned into something you quite quickly became proud of. Yeah. I'd love to learn more about that. When I grew up in Syria, politics wasn't something that we would talk about. It's very well known. For me, I had a tunnel vision for sports. I would literally watch, with my dad, everything. Motorsports, tennis, everything. There's no match of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer that we did not watch. um but yeah I never like really learned or had like the urgency to be like oh I need to learn about refugees and what happens to them where do they go how do they refuge um until I became one um so when I arrived to Germany I was like okay yes I'm a refugee but like it's not real why because there wasn't really a big role yet there wasn't like representation there wasn't like a big spotlight to say oh she is a refugee right so I didn't have to sit down and like deal with it but um the moment where like I was like no I don't want you to call me a refugee I'm not a refugee I'm going home is connected to swimming because when I started training actually training again obviously my goal was the Olympics and then I had a conversation with Sven that was very involved in our lives and he still is in my life he's a really really good friend Sven is the swimming coach Sven is the coach yeah and Sven was like hey listen I saw this interview of the president of the international olympic committee and he's saying that the IOC international olympic committee is helping refugees refugee athletes that are across the world to be able to train like with scholarships and I was like yeah okay that's all I said like I was not interested in hearing more I just wanted to swim right so he applies um and I get the scholarship what we did not know is that that scholarship immediately put me on like the list of people who could go to the Olympics, not even a year later of me arriving to Europe, which was 2016 Olympics, Rio.

22:46And the president again appears on TV. He's like, the UN and International Olympic Committee feel and know that there should be a team formed by refugee athletes to send a message to humanity because the number of refugees is at that time or displaced people around the world was 65 million people. And then I'm like, cool. Like, OK. And then the president goes again and says there will be 10 athletes. One of them is a Syrian swimmer in Germany. Why could you not? I'm like, excuse me, what? I did not even imagine I did not even have an email at that point. I didn't like I didn't feel connected to the world I was like I told you like ton of vision 17 years old literally I was like not you know um so basically Sven comes to me and he says that and he goes I'm receiving a few messages on your behalf and I'm like what do you mean he's like more like 300 emails arrived today and I was like what I was like okay okay so I did not get the sense of reality until a Chinese journalist came all the way from China to the swimming club to interview me and told them, yes, I talked to Yusuf Margini's team.

24:16I was like, what team? There was no team. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College Deal. Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college PC. I did not realize the mass of what just happened. The first ever Refuge Olympic team is created.

24:56this can either change the world or end up in a very bad way this was a very big risk why did you why do you see a negative and risk potential so this is how probably you and an isc saw it for me as just a child so here's where the word refugee comes in there then it's it becomes official yusra marzini has qualified for or has been selected to be one of the refugee athletes that goes to the Olympics. We were 10 athletes. My coach comes and tells me, and I'm like, nope. He's like, what do you mean? I'm like, I'm not going. And then I talk to my family. I'm like, I'm not going. And then Sven, I've never seen him mad, ever.

25:41And he was like, what do you mean? Like, he was very, very upset, like in a sad way. And then I was like, I'm not going to go for people to feel sorry for me because of what happened to me. I've been training since like professionally since I was like six years old to become an Olympian to be able to participate to be able to you know represent my country I was like I'm Syrian I want to represent Syria I'm not gonna be called a refugee in front of the whole entire world world and then it took me um a few days I talked to my parents I talked to my sister um and And I realized that it wasn't just my dream.

26:22I realized that my dad was my coach since I was three years old. I still remember seeing him walking the lines with me. My mom coming to the pool and sitting for two hours when I was a child, making my sandwich and then drying my hair. It wasn't only my effort that brought me here. And then I realized my sister, who's my best friend, my biggest rival in swimming, everything cool I learned from her. I was like, they all reminded me of there are opportunities in life that you take and you decide what to do with it. So I took that, you know, opportunity and I was like, OK, I'm going. I'm going to go.

27:06So I got to the Olympics. Obviously, it wasn't all positive, but the positivity around that team. I've never seen anything like that in the sports world. There was one article that said the refugee Olympic team had more press conferences than Michael Phelps himself. And that was Michael Phelps' last Olympic Games. Wow. And you were leading the team. They called me the face of the refugee Olympic team. And I was literally 18 years old. Wow. to paint a picture for you why the whole idea of being a refugee and representing changed for me the moment I walked into the stadium at the opening ceremony I just realized the whole stadium stand up and they fixed the the the camera on like the most important people in the room which is like the president the UN commissioner and I was like and they stood and I could see like literally tears in his eyes like he was so proud of the moment of creating the team when i walked in i i was like oh my god that's amazing and then my instagram account was private i went to the olympics like that's how much i was not i was not interested in fame i was not interested in anything but swimming i started getting like requests and i'm like i opened them and it's like from young girls young refugees they're like we watched your race we watched your race at the refugee camp and I was like wait what I was like this is insane so that was the moment where I was like oh hold on you cannot be selfish this is way bigger than you this is way bigger than just being an athlete being an athlete an Olympian is incredible but I have a responsibility to give back and I'm telling you this now I knew what that meant but I didn't know what that meant I was too young to understand, but I knew deep in my heart that I'm going to change something.

29:11So that point I started like talking to the media. They were in love, you know, they, and I'm not like gonna like sugarcoat it. But when there is a young girl who speaks English, knows about politics, pretty, it's playful. She's not scared to take her mind. That was perfect for like the European media, for like the Western media. It was like, oh, she fits the box. And I realize that now because I'm like, oh, it's so great that I took that advantage and that I used it in the most amazing way in terms of like humanity and like helping refugees all around the world. So basically that's like where everything changed of like I'm a refugee and I don't want to live here.

29:58Like I just want to go home. I'm not. and then everything changed to yes i'm a refugee and that doesn't change that i'm a swimmer i'm yisra i'm the girl that like plays with her cousin uh cousins and so on like it doesn't change who i am it doesn't change what i want to do in life yes it's a it's what happened to me but what happens next I decide I just want to go back to yeah 18 years old yeah so the day when you walked into the stadium at the Olympics you were 18 years old 18 years old it was a blessing that I didn't realize how big this is you know when you're like ignorance is blessing yeah why?

30:46because I lived my life my whole life in Syria I didn't know what media is like I did interviews when I was like for like the competitions that I did in Syria. But I... It's a whole different game. Literally. And it's good that I was a teenager because you know the thoughts that you have when you're a teenager. Of course I can. Like there's no question. So it was, yes, it was like a very difficult timing because like I just left everything behind and started from zero again. But I'm also like here. This is my dream. And the funny thing is, when I was 18 years old, after the Olympics, I got so many offers to make a movie about my life.

31:30And I said, no, I rejected so many. And I still remember some of like Hollywood's best were not happy. They were like, no one's going to be interested in the story in like a year. Ten years later, we're here. yeah i was like because like what happened next is that like at 19 i start working with young hcr after the olympics after the olympics so in 2017 i was appointed the youngest ever goodwill ambassador for young hcr had no clue what that meant yeah what does that mean so basically being a goodwill ambassador for young hcr you help them with the um to raise funds you are the bridge between people who go to Davos and refugees in the camps.

32:19So I was this link to these two worlds because you can speak to both. Wealth and power and then yeah exactly. I mean not yet now I do but at that point I was just doing it as a job and I understood the power of it because I would enter a room and everyone would respect what I'm saying and I think this is very special for a girl that was 19 years old to enter. And I think when I was, when I, directly after the Olympic Games, I was invited to the United States by Obama to open the UN Refugee Summit. Wow. And still don't know what that means or didn't know what that meant. And then was appointed the youngest guru ambassador.

33:08So after I get appointed, a year later, I write a book about the story, a biography. So yeah, I kept like going crazy after crazy. So age 19. Yep. You're still swimming. Yes. You're still based in Germany. Yes. Your sister is with you in Germany? Yeah. When I went to the Olympics, she went back to Lesbos as a volunteer to Greece. She started, yeah. Is she still in Greece? No? Yeah. No. So she worked as a volunteer for a while in Greece. And unfortunately then she was arrested for her humanitarian work. And the case is not over yet. But she went back to Germany and still works in the advocacy field.

33:53Nice. Yeah, the family is full of rebels.

33:59So you're still in Germany. You're still swimming. What does this next phase of your life look like post-Olympics with this new involvement with the UN and speaking on behalf of the refugee team and refugees around the world? Yeah it wasn't easy what wasn't easy for me not doing the work or like getting to know refugees what was what was hard for me is to understand like who am I right now like what am I doing like I still love swimming but sometimes I have to skip training to go to a press conference where I talk about like millions of refugees like I wouldn't say it was an identity crisis but it was like is this what I want or what's happening and to be completely honest it was what was happening because I didn't understand what it is like to to be a goodwill ambassador what that meant the weight of it but working with the unhcr prepared me for so much in life because like i was complaining sometimes like being working with them and filming and doing this and filming the campaign for the winter and then i understood that my message actually truly reaches so many people and so many people donate because of one video i do so then slowly i realized understanding like the the different difference it makes along the way working with your nhcr and meeting people and um building this like network of um incredible talents and incredible fans and um refugees all around the world like made me understand okay this is not something that i have to do this is something that i want to do yeah and what was it like on your personal development and and teenage years or early 20s to go from this tunnel vision you're talking about like you in the pool and then of course your loved ones to rubbing shoulders with lots of people i know you're you're a great people person yeah and you you told me no i am when i was 18 i i don't i'm not gonna mention who but i was in the in a room and like a gala I didn't even know what a gala meant I didn't even care I was that young um with one of the richest families in the world didn't care didn't know who they are walked out of the room never questioned it and I still am in touch with them now because of Sven Sven would like be someone that would connect on my behalf and I have so many like incredible contacts now because of him but I did not even have a clue who's who on the personal side thank god for swimming like I think swimming saved me so many times and what kept me it kept me sane is that even when I was like in Davos I would be telling the UN I need I need a pool because I need to train so I swear everywhere I went there is like so many hotels hotel pools I I trained in Yucatan, all around the world.

37:22It's beautiful. From Tokyo to London to Switzerland. It was just so incredible to be able to live as an athlete and then as an advocate. And I still remember, even if I'm so busy, I have these two hours to myself training. So I think swimming was and will always be my therapy. It helps me a lot. Even until now, I train six times a week. Wow. Yeah, I love it. It's, I think, a healthy and unhealthy relationship to sport. But when you do it all of your life, it's just like you don't know how to move on. But you learn how to live with it in a different way. To stay healthy, to use it as therapy, to just say, hey, I'm at the gym.

38:13I'm not answering anything right now. So yeah, I think definitely swimming saved me from a lot of craziness. Because you're definitely exposed to a lot of craziness. Yeah. Especially now with your career. Yeah. And to be completely honest, I had a great team. And how much did the film producers involve you in the making of that movie? A lot. It's very accurate. It's scary. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people ask me, why did you not act in the movie? And I'm like, first of all, I don't want to relive the experience. And then second of all, I was preparing for the Olympic Games during COVID, which meant I was in isolation.

38:56Three months, I did not see my family before the Olympics. Even my roommate would stay in different, like very far away from each other. It was very like human connection was like zero. you could not like be close to anyone at all because that would risk your whole olympic participation so they were filming during covid and i could not be on set not even once only the last set that they did was after the olympics and it was in berlin and it was a swimming scene in the endless pool like the small pool that has a current and i did these things but i think it was an incredible the making of the swimmers the way the first meeting I ever had with the production company was in London it's working title we sat in a room and I had a meeting with them and the person that I was talking to and I immediately had a great gut feeling about was Eric Felna I got out of that meeting with the contract signed from the first time I was like this is the production company they were doing the movie with.

40:03And then during the production, they struggled with the budget because of COVID and all of that. That's where the movie was pitched to Netflix. And then the script landed with an Egyptian lady. Her dad was a migrant. She fought for the script to be taken by Netflix. It was taken by Netflix. And then it was released in 2022, which is insane. Insane. Yeah. the mix of cultures the mix of people that acted in the movie like the person that was playing my cousin is a very well-known egyptian actor the two girls that played me and my sister were real sisters and they're lebanese the person that played my mom is syrian the person that played my dad is palestinian it was just an insane mix the the person that played my coach is german it was just so so cool yeah i said yeah that that was an incredible time it was the exact time where I was like another very brilliant idea on my side.

41:01I wanted to study film. So I immediately, the swimmer goes out, I apply for a full scholarship from USC. And it was like so fresh that at the time I still remember like it wasn't possible to have a full scholarship. And I was like, I'm not coming if it's not a full scholarship. And I got a full scholarship. Yeah. And that's how I started with film, like studying film and then the fashion side. so yeah it was a good plan. It sounds like you're able to activate so many different parts of your interests and so many different parts of your identity into your work yeah which I think is such a beautiful thing thank you you can you love fashion you can work in fashion yeah you love swimming it's a big part of who you are.