Emmy Award-winning actress Shohreh Aghdashloo sees acting as a way to reflect the world around her. In her role as Chrisjen Avasarala in Amazon Prime’s “The Expanse,” Aghdashloo’s politically savvy, multi-cultural world leader represents far more than just a fiction character.
“Although [The Expanse] takes place a couple of hundred years from now, it speaks about today, in a metaphorical way or in a symbolical way,” Aghdashloo explains. “With science fictions and animations, we can be free in what we’re talking about without being worried about offending people. We can talk about stories that we are dealing with now.”
Aghdashloo remarks that her character, Avasarala, is “the most powerful woman I have ever played.” But the actress has had many significant roles prior to this, earning her several Oscar nominations and an Emmy Award.
Shohreh Aghdashloo as a World Leader
In the world of The Expanse, Earth faces an environmental crisis, forced to ship in water from a colonized Mars. Aghdashloo’s character, Avasarala, leads Earth in the complex diplomatic decisions that this arrangement requires.
“Chrisjen is the Deputy Secretary of the United Nations 200 years from now, in a key position, making decisions,” the veteran actress remarks. “She is a people’s politician, and the second-highest ranking person in the United Nations.”
Aghdashloo’s character does not always act the hero. However, she offers Aghdashloo the opportunity to get inside the mind of a political leader. “Every time I portray a character, good or bad, I don’t judge them,” she says. “And with this one, I decided that she’s an amazing politician, she’s shrewd because she has to be, she’s brutal but she has to be.”
From Climbing Trees to the Silver Screen
As a self-admitted tomboy, the actress fondly remembers getting into trouble for climbing trees as a child in Tehran, Iran. “My grandmothers would say – ‘you know you are a girl? You cannot go up the trees, you’re a girl,’” she recalls. “And I would say – yes I am, but I can do it.”
With a similar brash attitude towards acting, Aghdashloo moved to London and then Los Angeles. In LA, she opened her own theater company, Workshop 79, before eventually moving full-time to film and television roles.
In her early career, Aghdashloo’s agent told her she would never make it as an Iranian-American actress. “He told me, ‘you know Shohreh, you are limited,’” she recalls. “And I told him, ‘I may be limited in your world, but I am unlimited in mine.’”
“The barriers aren’t there as much as they were before,” she says. “Now that the whole world has turned into a global village, people are becoming more and more aware that societies are breathing diversity. We don’t see the reflection of it on the silver screen as much as we do in real life, but societies have changed.”
Shohreh Aghdashloo: An Actress With a Mission
While Aghdashloo enjoys acting, she also sees it as a means to reach people around the world.
“The day I left Iran, right at the time of the turmoil [during the 1979 revolution], I turned myself into an actress with a mission,” she explains. “I always wanted to be a part of a meaningful, substantial storytelling that would be enlightening, educational and helpful to the people.”
As Chrisjen Avasarala, Aghdashloo has that opportunity. She plays a role that speaks to the social and political issues the actress cares about. Fans can catch up on all four seasons of The Expanse on Amazon today.
