"From ’Call My Agent!’ to Hollywood: Assaâd Bouab’s Meteoric Rise"

In 2020, Hicham Janowsky announced on his Instagram account the end of his participation in the series Call My Agent!, after nearly four years of collaboration. "End of filming for me, end of the story for Hicham Janowski. [...] It was a real chance to join this team, I thank you all. 3 and a half years of happiness. This series will always have a special place in my heart," he wrote. What has the Franco-Moroccan actor become five years later, while a Call My Agent! feature film is in preparation?

Born on July 31, 1980 in Aurillac to a French mother and a Moroccan father, Assaâd Bouab spent his childhood in Morocco. After his baccalaureate, he joined Paris where he joined the Cours Florent in 1999. He later entered the Conservatoire de Paris, from which he graduated in 2006. Two years earlier, Assaâd Bouab appeared in the film Marock by Laïla Marrakchi, which was a great success in France and abroad. In 2010, he also played in the feature film Outside the Law by Rachid Bouchareb, alongside Jamel Debbouze and Roschdy Zem, but also in Queen of the Desert in 2015, with Nicole Kidman and Robert Pattinson.

In 2017, Assaâd Bouab was selected for the series Call My Agent!, where he played Hicham Janowsky, the majority shareholder of the ASK agency. "It’s great for an actor or actress to play a character who has a lot of flaws. I think Camille Cottin loved playing Connasse for example. It’s the same for me with this character," he told TF1 in 2018. At the end of the series, the Franco-Moroccan actor filmed the feature film Overdose by Olivier Marchal in 2022, alongside Sofia Essaïdi. He also participated in the series Inventing Anna and Peaky Blinders the same year. In 2024, he played Beaumarchais in the mini-series Franklin broadcast on Apple TV+, with notably Michael Douglas, Ludivine Sagnier or Jeanne Balibar.

In his private life, Assaâd Bouab is very discreet. "I don’t go out much, wrongly though, maybe I could go out more. I love parties of course, but I’m quite homely. I also love the theater and I imagine that feeds a certain discretion," he said in an interview with the Shoelifer website in 2024. Would the Franco-Moroccan actor be ready to play again in Call My Agent!, while a feature film is in preparation? What is certain is that his name is nowhere to be found in the cast of the film. For now, the Moroccan actor is focusing on a short film he has written, "the story of which takes place in Morocco and will be shot on location," he told Shoelifer.