Star of multiple TV shows, Naim Halawi talks to Danielle el Chemaly about teamwork, politics and the gender of Beirut.

Most of your sketches are set in Beirut, what is it about the city that you like?
First of all I am from Beirut; you can say that Beirut is my identity. She (yes, Beirut represent more than a city – she is a person) is characterized by different things, mostly the contradictions is her. The beautiful and, not to say ugly, but more like chaos – the new and the old, happiness and sadness, not to mention the inspirational aspect to all the poets, artists, writers, philosophers...

We noticed an obvious change in your work...
It is not me who changed, but I guess the audience did. Don’t forget that the Lebanese audience is very critical (which, by the way, is a very good thing). He might like one thing today, but will have a totally different view of it tomorrow. But I guess what happened is that they got annoyed by our politics – but let us face it, you cannot please the whole audience.

Which political character do you like to interpret the most?
I am usually not good in imitating public figures, but I think I am good at imitating Michel el Murr because I have the same features and body. Wiam Wahhab and Issam Abou Jamra are also one of my bests.

We’ve seen you working with different teams – which one did you like working with the most?
When I first started with MTV back in 1993, many had joined the team and now each has its different plans, shows and performances. I like them all and I think we had a mutual help, I took some good things and tried to improve, and they did the same. But I can say that the team I am currently working with is more like a family for me; I feel the homogeneity in our thoughts.

How much do you count on the technique of improvisation in your work?
It might not be a good thing to say, but most of our works are improvised. Of course we have the idea, the beginning and the ending, but we improvise the dialogue and that’s what makes the sketches more real and closer to the audience.