Navid Negahban

Navid Negahban
Navid Negahban
نوید نگهبان
	Negahban at the 2019 WonderCon
Born	June 2, 1968 (age 56); Mashhad, Khorasan Province, Imperial State of Iran
Nationality	Iranian-American
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1993–present

Navid Negahban (Persian: نوید نگهبان; born June 2, 1968) 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

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.^[1] He left Iran in 1985 when he was 17 for Turkey and then Germany, where he spent eight years.^[2] In Germany, he worked for a theater company, and then in 1993 he moved to the United States.^[2] He is fluent in English, German and Farsi.^[1]^[2] He also began learning French for his role on Legion.

Career

He has appeared in The Shield, The West Wing, Lost, and CSI: Miami.^[3] 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.^[4]

Negahban also had two collaborations with another Iranian-American actress, Mozhan Marnò, in the TV series The Unit^[5] 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.^[3] Negahban also appeared as terrorist mastermind Abu Nazir in the critically acclaimed TV series Homeland.^[1] 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. Negahban 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 appears in the American crime drama television series The Cleaning Lady as Hayak Barsamian, an Armenian Mob Boss.

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
2008	The Stoning of Soraya M.	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
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
2023	Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham	Ra's al Ghul (voice)	^[6]
	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
2003	JAG	Jamal Bin Fahad Al-Hadi
2004	Threat Matrix	Fred
	The West Wing	Maz
	Lost	Omar	Episode: "Solitary"
2005	Over There	Iraqi Father
2005	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
	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
2016	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	17 episodes
2018–2019	God Friended Me	Hasan	2 episodes
2020	Castlevania	Sala (voice)	10 episodes
2020	Tehran	Masoud Tabrizi	8 episodes
2022	The Cleaning Lady	Hayak Barsamian	Recurring role
	The Old Man	Faraz Hamzad
	The Serpent Queen	Claude, Duke of Guise	4 episodes
2023	Pantheon	Dr. Farhad Karimi	3 episodes

Video Games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2008	Dead Space	Dr. Challus Mercer^[7]
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^[7]
	Call of Duty: Black Ops II	Additional Voices
2016	1979 Revolution: Black Friday	Asadollah Lajevardi	Co-producer
2020	Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War	Arash Kadivar
2022	Gotham Knights	Ra's al Ghul^[7]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "Showtime Mini-Biography". Archived from the original on September 25, 2012. Retrieved December 4, 2012.
^ ^a ^b ^c Laracy, Noah (November 25, 2009). "Navid Negahban: A Back Stage Exclusive". Retrieved December 10, 2012.
^ ^a ^b "IMDb: Navid Negahban". IMDb. Retrieved December 10, 2012.
^ "IMDb: Dishonor (2010) "Did You Know?"". IMDb. Retrieved December 10, 2012.
^ "IMDb: "The Unit" (Security) 2006". IMDb. Retrieved December 10, 2012.
^ "'Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham' Sets Voice Cast (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. December 6, 2022.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Navid Negahban (visual voices guide)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved January 7, 2024. 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 opening and/or closing credits and/or other reliable sources of information.