Rahavard Farahani, known professionally as Golshifteh Farahani, is an Iranian actress, singer, and performer. She has appeared TV shows, music videos, and in over 30 films. She is most well-known for her work in independent international films.
Her latest film, Brother and Sister by the French director Arnaud Desplechin, is expected for release in Spring 2022. She will appear alongside French actors Marion Cotillard and Melvil Poupaud.
Golshifteh Farahani: International actress
Farahani is the star of the Apple TV+ sci-fi series Invasion. She plays Aneesha Malik, a daughter of Syrian immigrants and mother of two. She discovers her husband’s secret right before an alien invasion changes the world.
The actress’ first major film debut was in the 1998 Iranian drama Derakht-e-Golabi (The Pear Tree). She played the 14-year-old cousin – and object of infatuation – of the main character. Farahani won the Simorgh Prize for Best Actress at Tehran’s Fajr Film Festival for her performance.
Farahani has appeared in international films featured in the Marrakech, Venice, and Cannes film festivals, among others. On two occasions she won Best Actress at the Kazan International Film Festival. The first she won for her role in Ashk-e Sarma (The Tear of the Cold) (2004). The second she won for the Iranian film Mim Mesle Madar (M for Mother) (2007).
Following her breakout success in Iranian film, Farahani began acting in French, and later American, cinema. In 2008 Farahani debuted in American film with Ridley Scott’s spy thriller Body of Lies. She performed the role of Aisha, the nurse and love interest of Leonardo DiCaprio’s protagonist. Following the movie, Iran exiled the actress for violating Islamic Law by appearing without hijab.
In 2017 Farahani appeared as Shansa, the sea witch, in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. In 2019 the actress lent her voice to the dystopian sci-fi adult animation series Gen:Lock. She plays Yasamin ‘Yaz’ Madrani, an Iranian recruit to an experimental research organization.
Farahani also played the mercenary Nik Khan in Netflix’s action thriller Extraction (2020) alongside Chris Hemsworth.
Golshifteh Farahani hails from Tehran, Iran
Farahani was born in 1983 in Tehran, Iran, to Behzad and Fahimeh Farahani. Her father, Behzad, is an actor and theatre director. She also has two siblings. Her sister, Shaghayegh Farahani, is an actress as well.
Farahani first began studying piano at 5 years old. She later entered a school for music in Tehran.
“Iran today is not the Iran I left and that’s the problem – when exiled, you leave a country and this country will never be the same when you go back,” Farahani told CineVue. “I don’t even know that if I went to Iran today, I would be able to live there any more.”
“I have a very complicated life because I am out of my country, where I was born and raised,” Farahani continued. “The thing is, I’m working between continents, between languages, between different cultures – from Hindi, to French, to English, to Farsi, to Afghani, to Arabic…And this was always what my vision was, to break the barrier of being typecast, or anything like that, which is amazing actually.”
Golshifteh Farahani in Desplechin’s Brother and Sister
In Brother and Sister. Marion Cotillard and Melvil Poupaud play estranged siblings that forcibly reunite following their parents’ death. Farahani performs the role of Poupard’s wife.
“One thread follows a brother (Poupaud), who no longer sees his sister, and one follows the sister (Cotillard), who no longer sees her brother,” said Desplechin. “The film’s goal is to reunite them.”
Shooting for Brother and Sister took place in the northern French city of Roubaix. Following the editing process, the film will be ready by May, Descplechin told Variety. 11 of Desplechin’s 12 works so far have featured at Cannes. Why Not Productions is producing the film.
“It was an emotionally walloping shoot, because the tones the actors struck went far beyond anything I could have ever expected,” the director said. “I had no idea they would offer so much, and was overwhelmed by the intensity of their performances.”
