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Navid Negahban

Iranian-American actor

Field	Value
name	Navid Negahban
image	Navid Negahban by Gage Skidmore 2.jpg
caption	Negahban at the 2019 WonderCon
native_name	نوید نگهبان
native_name_lang	Fa
birth_date
birth_place	Mashhad, Khorasan, Imperial State of Persia
nationality
occupation	Actor
yearsactive	1993–present

Navid Negahban () is an Iranian-American actor. He has appeared on 24, Homeland, Mistresses, and as Amahl Farouk / Shadow King in the second and third seasons of FX's Legion. He has also starred as the Sultan in the live-action remake of Aladdin.

Early life and education

Navid Negahban was born in Mashhad, Iran. He took a liking to the theater when he was eight years old, while provoking laughter from a large audience by portraying an old man on stage.

He left Iran in 1985 when he was 17 for Turkey and then Germany, where he spent eight years. In Germany, he worked for a theater company, and then in 1993 he moved to the United States.

He is fluent in English, German, and Persian. He also began learning French for his role on Legion.

Career

He has appeared in The Shield, The West Wing, Lost, and CSI: Miami. He has collaborated twice with Iranian-American actress Necar Zadegan, once in 24, where her on-screen husband ordered his interrogation and the torturing of his family, and also in CSI: Miami, where, as his wife, she killed him.

Negahban also had two collaborations with another Iranian-American actress, Mozhan Marnò, in the TV series The Unit and the movie The Stoning of Soraya M., where he plays the husband of Soraya (Marnò). In 2008, Negahban voiced and provided his likeness to the character Dr. Challus Mercer in the survival horror game Dead Space. Negahban also appeared as terrorist mastermind Abu Nazir in the critically acclaimed TV series Homeland.

In 2011 he won the Best Actor Award for the 2009 Iranian short film, Liberation at the Noor Iranian Film Festival, and in 2012, he returned to serve as an official festival judge.

In February 2015, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety confirmed that Negahban had begun shooting the spy thriller, Damascus Cover, based on the novel by Howard Kaplan, alongside Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Olivia Thirlby, and John Hurt. Negahban played the role of Syrian General Sarraj.

He appeared as General Abdul Rashid Dostum in the 2018 war drama, 12 Strong, and also starred as the Sultan in the 2019 live-action adaptation of Aladdin. In 2022, he appeared in the American crime drama television series The Cleaning Lady as Hayak Barsamian, an Armenian Mob Boss.

In 2025 he appeared as Abbas Mansuri in Netflix's The Night Agent, the Iranian Ambassador to the UN working in New York. Of interest is that in the entire show his dialog is in Persian (Farsi) with subtitles in English, giving an added air of credibility to the character.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2005	The Fallen Ones	Ammon
2006	Broken	Keith
2007	Waking Dreams	Toly
Charlie Wilson's War	Refugee Camp Translator
Richard III	Sir James Tyrrel
2008	Djinn	Djinn
**	Ali
2009	Powder Blue	Dr. Brooks
Stellina Blue	Amir Keshavarz
Dead Air	Abir
Brothers	Murad
2011	Atlas Shrugged: Part I	Dr. Robert Stadler
2013	The Power of Few	Sahel
The Moment	Malik Jamil
Words and Pictures	Headmaster Rashid
2014	American Sniper	Sheikh Al-Obodi
2015	Baba Joon	Itzhak	Also executive producer
2016	Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero	Mohammad Mohammad-Mohammadi
Brain on Fire	Dr. Souhel Najjar
Window Horses	Mehran (voice)
Sniper: Ghost Shooter	Robert Mothershed
2017	Sand Castle	Kadir
American Assassin	Minister Behruz
Carving a Life	Dr. Kasem
Damascus Cover	Sarraj
2018	12 Strong	General Abdul Rashid Dostum
2019	Aladdin	The Sultan
2022	Tehranto	Narrator	Also executive producer
2023	Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham	Ra's al Ghul (voice)
Kandahar	Mohammad "Mo" Doud
Sitting in Bars with Cake	Isaac

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2000	The Invisible Man	Oman Tariq
2002	The Shield	Zayed Al-Thani
2003	The Agency	Arab Driver / Palestinian Officer	2 episodes
JAG	Jamal Bin Fahad Al-Hadi
2004	Threat Matrix	Fred
The West Wing	Maz
Lost	Omar	Episode: "Solitary"
2005	Over There	Iraqi Father
24	Abdullah
2006	Las Vegas	Farouk Naeem
The Unit	Faheed	Episode: "Security"
Without a Trace	Nazar Rahim
The Path to 9/11	Khalili	2 episodes
Criminal Minds	Hassan Nadir	Episode: "Secrets and Lies"
Alias	Foreman
Law & Order	Imam Ibrahim	Episode: "Fear America"
The Closer	Dr. Al-Thani	2 episodes
Sleeper Cell	The Colonel
2007	Shark	Amir Khan
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Dr. Rankesh Chanoor	Episode: "Outsider"
NCIS	Jalil Shaloub
Moonlight	Amir Fayed
2009	Fringe	Dr. Malik Yusef	Episode: "Fracture"
2010	CSI: Miami	Rahim Farooq	Episode: "Dishonor"
24	Jamot	8 episodes
Dark Blue	Ahmad Satar
NCIS: Los Angeles	Aziz Anshiri
The Whole Truth	Paul Bagdazarian
2011	Covert Affairs	Unknown
2011–2013	Homeland	Abu Nazir	20 episodes
2013	CSI: NY	Zane Kalim
The Game	Martin Sheibani	Episode: "I Love Luke...ahh!"
Arrow	Al-Owal	Episode: "League of Assassins"
2014	The Mentalist	Hassan Zarif
Person of Interest	Ali Hasan	Episode: "Panopticon"
Tatort	Harun
2015	Scorpion	Agent Khara	Episode: "Forget Me Nots"
Veep	Abbas
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Sam Farhidi
The Messengers	Afghan Prime Minister	4 episodes
2016	The Catch	Qasim Halabi	2 episodes
Mistresses	Jonathan Amadi	6 episodes
2017	Curb Your Enthusiasm	Morsi	Episode: "Never Wait for Seconds!"
2018	The Team	Said Gharbour	8 episodes
2018–2019	Legion	Amahl Farouk / Shadow King	19 episodes
God Friended Me	Hasan	2 episodes
2020	Castlevania	Sala (voice)	10 episodes
Tehran	Masoud Tabrizi	8 episodes
2022	The Cleaning Lady	Hayak Barsamian	Recurring role
The Serpent Queen	Claude, Duke of Guise	4 episodes
2022–2024	The Old Man	Faraz Hamzad	6 episodes
2023	Ghosts of Beirut	Ali-Reza Asgari	3 episodes
Pantheon	Dr. Farhad Karimi (voice)	3 episodes
2024	WondLa	Loroc (voice)
2025	The Night Agent	Abbas Mansuri	8 episodes
Splinter Cell: Deathwatch	Reza "Gunther" Karimi (voice)	8 episodes

Video games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2008	Dead Space	title=Navid Negahban (visual voices guide)	url=http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/Navid-Negahban/	access-date=January 7, 2024	publisher=Behind The Voice Actors}} A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information.
2010	Dark Void	The Watcher
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands	Opening Poem Reader, Sandman, additional voices
Medal of Honor	Pashto Fighter 5
2012	Ghost Recon: Future Soldier	Thug
Spec Ops: The Line	Refugees
Call of Duty: Black Ops II	Additional Voices
2016	1979 Revolution: Black Friday	Asadollah Lajevardi	Also producer
2020	Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War	Perseus
2022	Gotham Knights	Ra's al Ghul

References

"Showtime Mini-Biography".
Laracy, Noah. (November 25, 2009). "Navid Negahban: A Back Stage Exclusive".
"IMDb: Navid Negahban".
"Dishonor (2010) "Did You Know?"".
"IMDb: "The Unit" (Security) 2006".
"IMDb: The Night Agent".
(December 6, 2022). "'Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham' Sets Voice Cast (Exclusive)".
"Navid Negahban (visual voices guide)". Behind The Voice Actors.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1968-births living-people american-male-film-actors american-male-television-actors iranian-male-film-actors iranian-male-television-actors actors-from-mashhad 20th-century-american-male-actors 21st-century-american-male-actors iranian-emigrants-to-turkey iranian-emigrants-to-the-united-states iranian-emigrants-to-germany exiles-of-the-iranian-revolution-in-germany exiles-of-the-iranian-revolution-in-the-united-states

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