Tareq Nassery lands leading role in 4 Blocks Zero

Munich actor Tareq Nassery plays Ali Hamady, the future clan leader, as a young man in the HBO series 4 Blocks Zero, BR reports. The series is a prequel to the successful crime drama 4 Blocks.

Nassery’s parents have struggled to believe their son is now appearing on advertising posters. The actor, who grew up in Munich’s Hasenbergl district, said he had never considered becoming an actor as a child.

His mother wanted him to become a doctor, engineer or pilot. His parents had fled Afghanistan for Munich to give him a better life. Born in 1998, Nassery said he enjoyed his childhood in Hasenbergl, including playing football on the church playground.

Although his upbringing was more peaceful than that of his character, Nassery sees parallels between their lives. His parents’ flight from their homeland and his experience translating official letters for them are among them.

“What distinguishes us is that I received my German passport as a toddler,” Nassery told Bayern 2 Zündfunk. “I don’t know the fear of being deported at any moment.”

In 4 Blocks Zero, the fictional Hamady family has fled war-torn Lebanon. The father can only work illegally under his temporary suspension of deportation, while the three sons share a mattress in the living room.

Despite its action scenes and gun violence, the series is primarily a social drama, Nassery said. He hopes it will draw attention to the mistakes of migration policy in the 1990s and encourage people to learn from them.

The series follows a family that wants to adapt, work and become part of society, but encounters a Germany that does not want to see itself as a country of immigration. The family is prevented from arriving fully, a situation that does not excuse parallel structures or a slide into crime but can encourage them.

In one scene, Ali, the eldest son and a model student, says: “I always have to try harder than the others, but it is never enough.” Nassery said he knew the feeling from his own experience, such as when a train conductor checked only him. “It is very subtle, but it is not a good feeling,” he said.

Without 4 Blocks, Nassery might never have become an actor. He applied in 2018 after seeing a casting call for extras, but was rejected.

He went on to study business administration and became the first person in his family to earn a university degree. Alongside his studies and work, he took acting lessons and attended auditions. After several rejections, he began to doubt himself. Just as he was about to give up, he received an invitation to audition for the top-secret project 4 Blocks Zero.