Who is abdel in the intouchables

Abdel was born and raised in Algeria amidst a lot of hardships. He resorted to petty thievery and was designated as the black sheep of his family. At the risk of losing his French Visa, Abdel applied for a job as a caregiver to Philippe. Nevertheless, Abdel was selected by Philippe personally because he found his straightforwardness and irreverent humor to be attractive.

Toledano and Nakache wanted to create a comedy-drama rather than depicting it with serious undertones. He no longer makes his home in Paris, but lives in Morocco with his second wife. His inbox is always full of emails from people asking him for advice. He's become a symbolic figure, someone in whom others find strength. He replies to every email. Cologne shows how even a literature festival can make a contribution: The discussion is simultaneously translated into sign language, and the front row of the venue is reserved for wheelchairs.

The books written by Pozzo di Borgo and Sellou are currently being reworked to reach a wider audience. A shorter version with simplified language is in the making for people who have difficulty reading - a very large segment of the population which has been almost entirely ignored on the book market until now.

Pozzo di Borgo's commitment is inspiring. Where does he get the energy to do it all? DW caught up with Brit literary star David Mitchell at the lit. Cologne festival where he talked about the pan-European roots of his writing, finding himself on the big screen and what to expect from his upcoming opera.

Discrimination against Sinti and Roma began as a way for Europeans to assert their modernity: Klaus-Michael Bogdal asserts this thesis in his latest book, which has won him a prestigious prize at the Leipzig Book Fair. In Germany, Chinese dissidents can live and work freely. For author Ye Fu, that means he can spend a pleasant enough fellowship year in Cologne.

However, true happiness lies elsewhere for him. Visit the new DW website Take a look at the beta version of dw. Go to the new dw. More info OK. Wrong language? While both men are short with relatively square faces, Philippe's real-life caretaker, Abdel Sellou, is an Algerian Muslim, not a black American.

Like his onscreen counterpart, Abdel was indeed hot-tempered and accustomed to solving disputes with his fists, something that he has since given up. At 4, he was sent to Paris to live with relatives. By age 10, he was stealing and trying to extort his schoolmates.

He spent his time coming up with ways to steal from the tourists who roamed the streets of Paris. In answering the question, "How accurate is The Upside movie? This means that in real life, Philippe's first wife was alive for almost three years after his caretaker, Abdel Sellou, was hired in So, that's one stupid thing I accepted from him.

Many of the wild things that Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart's characters do in the movie were inspired by the real-life exploits of Philippe Pozzo di Borgo and his caretaker Abdel Sellou. Together, they made a game of speeding through Paris in Philippe's Rolls-Royce until the police pulled them over.

Abdel would then explain that the reason they were speeding was because Philippe was having a seizure. Not only didn't they get a ticket, the police would escort them to the closest hospital. Another thing Abdel did was have Philippe's wheelchair modified so that it was capable of going as fast as 9mph, with Abdel riding on the back like Kevin Hart's character does in the movie.

The chair had a wing mirror and an onboard computer that allowed Philippe to execute a variety of tasks, including opening windows and using his phone. In real life, Abdel didn't play a trick on Philippe by trimming his beard into a Hitler mustache prior to going on a date.

In researching The Upside true story, we learned that Abdel was indeed a womanizer. After his time working with Philippe came to an end, he did settle down and got married. He now operates a poultry farm in Algeria and has three children who call Philippe their "uncle. I'm now settled, squeezed into my new life, but I am still a man and I tell it loudly, which people don't usually. I still like women. The directors changed the nationality of the character in the story in order to be able to cast Omar.

The directors had previously worked with this actor in Tellement proches and decided that he would be a great fit for the role of the assistant with a big heart. Also, Sy was cast long before the script was even complete. His parents moved from west Africa and started to live near Paris, in a district for needy people. Aside from Omar, there were 7 other children in their family. He just sees another person.

While preparing for the job, Sy wanted to be in top physical condition and lost weight. So he had to be skinnier than Omar himself was. It was quite a difficult job to portray a paralyzed businessman. But Cluzet did a wonderful job, even though almost the only thing he had to act with were his eyes. That means I usually need my body to express things Driss becomes my body in a way. The directors wanted to show the contrast between how mobile Driss was and how immobile Philippe was.