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Background:
Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo gained Hollywood recognition with her Academy
Award-nominated role as Nadi, the wife of Ben Kingsley’s character, in Vadim
Perelman's House of Sand and Fog (2003, based on Andre Dubus III's novel). The
first Iranian and Middle Eastern actress to be nominated for an Academy Award,
Shohreh Aghdashloo appeared in Maryam (2000), Surviving Paradise (2000), America
So Beautiful (2001) and The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005). She will be seen in
the upcoming films: The Lake House, American Dreamz and X-Men 3.
Pari Vaziri
Childhood and Family:
Pari Vaziri-Tabar, who would later be popular as Shohreh Aghdashloo, was born on
May 11, 1952 in Tehran, Iran to a wealthy family. She flew to England after the
1979 Revolution to study politics and social justice and eventually received a
degree in International Relations.
From 1972 to 1980, Shohreh married famous Persian painter Aydin Aghdashloo. Five
years later, she tied the knot with Persian theatre actor and director Houshang
Touzie and has a daughter named Tara.
America So Beautiful
Career:
Having joined acting school at a young age, Shohreh Aghdashloo began performed
in numerous plays with Theater Workshops in Iran and had her stage debut with
the Drama Workshop of Tehran. She landed roles in such Persian films as Mohammad
Reza Aslani's Shatranje bad (1976, loosely translated "Chess With the Wind,”
screened at several film festivals but was banned in her home country), renowned
writer-director Abbas Kiarostami's family drama Gozaresh (1977, a.k.a. The
Report, won critics awards at the Moscow Film Festival) and legendary Iranian
writer-director Ali Hatami's Sooteh-Delan (1978, a.k.a. Desiderium, Heart-brokens,
also banned in her home country).
Aghdashloo continued to pursue her acting career and moved to Los Angeles in
1987. She made her first film outside her home country in Reza Alamehzadeh's
powerful drama film Guests of Hotel Astoria (1989), which centers a group of
Iranian families, fleeing from Iran to Turkey seeking refuge to some Western
European country. Four years later, Aghdashloo was cast in Keva Rosenfeld's
comedy Twenty Bucks (1993, with Linda Hunt and David Rasche). She was also
spotted as a guest in an episode of "Martin" in April 1993.
Seven years after her last film, Aghdashloo returned to the wide screen with a
costarring role opposite Mariam Parris and David Ackert in Ramin Serry's Maryam
and appeared in writer-director Kamshad Kooshan's family drama Surviving
Paradise (both in 2000, with David Barry and Joe Alvarez). The next year,
Aghdashloo starred as an exiled Iranian actress in Babak Shokrian's tale about a
group of Iranian immigrants in 1979 pursuing the American Dream, America So
Beautiful (alongside husband Houshang Touzie). She then produced, co-wrote and
narrated the documentary Mystic Iran: The Unseen World (2002, V).
2003 saw Aghdashloo broke the Hollywood scene with her role as Nadi, a strong
but obedient Iranian-American wife and mother, opposite Ben Kingsley and
Jennifer Connelly, in House of Sand and Fog. The film, written and directed by
Vadim Perelman, is adopted from the best-selling novel by Andre Dubus III.
Aghdashloo brilliant performance earned several awards, including a Los Angeles
Film Critics Association award, New York Film Critics Circle award and an Online
Film Critics Society award. She also nabbed her first Academy Awards nomination
for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
Recently, Aghdashloo appeared in Babak & Friends: A First Norooz (V) and in
Scott Derrickson's flashback horror The Exorcism of Emily Rose (starring Laura
Linney and Tom Wilkinson). She also played the controversial reoccurring role of
terrorist Dina Araz during the fourth season of the action series “24” (starring
Kiefer Sutherland).
The subsequent year will watch Aghdashloo in Alejandro Agresti's romantic drama
The Lake House, alongside Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, and in
writer-director Paul Weitz's spoof of American identity, American Dreamz, based
around the wildly popular television singing contest called "American Dreamz."
She is also currently filming the third sequel to X-Men, Brett Ratner's X-Men 3,
playing Dr. Kavita Rao, a geneticist who invents a cure for mutation.
Awards:
- Independent Spirit: Best Supporting Female, House of Sand and Fog, 2004
- New York Film Critics Circle: Best Supporting Actress, House of Sand and
Fog, 2003.
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