Omid Djalili (; born 30 September 1965) is a British comedian, actor, and writer.

Early life and education

Djalili was born on 30 September 1965 in St Mary Abbots Hospital in Kensington, London, to

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

ian Baháʼí parents Ahmad and Parvaneh Djalili. His parents emigrated from

Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...

to London in 1958. He has a brother and sister. His mother was a dressmaker who at one point assisted Iranian singer Googoosh. His father was a liaison officer at the Iranian embassy in which he would provide medical assistance. He was also a photographer whose pictures ended up in the newspaper '' Kayhan''. He attended Holland Park School where he failed A-level exams a record six times and faked his results to gain entry to Ulster University in

Coleraine Coleraine ( ; from , 'nook of the ferns'Flanaghan, Deirdre & Laurence; ''Irish Place Names'', page 194. Gill & Macmillan, 2002. ) is a town and Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish near the mouth of the River Bann in County Londonderry, No ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

, studying English and theatre studies having been turned down by 16 drama schools. Djalili cited Jack Lemmon,

Dustin Hoffman Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for Dustin Hoffman filmography, his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable charac ...

, Meryl Streep,

Robert De Niro Robert Anthony De Niro ( , ; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor, director, and film producer. He is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of List of awards and ...

, Christopher Walken and Julia Roberts as influences.

Comedy career

The first significant success of his stand-up comedy career was at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1995 with "Short, Fat Kebab Shop Owner's Son", followed by "The Arab and the Jew" with

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

comedian Ivor Dembina in 1996. Djalili has performed in numerous countries, including

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, and the

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, where he had his own

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

Special. Djalili took part in a show for

Comic Relief Comic Relief is a British charity, founded in 1986 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Sir Lenny Henry in response to the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. The concept of Comic Relief was to get British comedians to make t ...

after the

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami On 26 December 2004, at 07:58:53 local time ( UTC+7), a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2–9.3 struck with an epicentre off the west coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The undersea megathrust earthquake, known in the sci ...

and also in 2005 he appeared on the British TV show '' Top Gear'' as a celebrity driver. The same year he broke Edinburgh Festival box office records with over 16,500 ticket sales. In 2006, Sky Television chose him to be the face of their Saturday night film premières, and he also announced a new tour of the UK called 'No Agenda', from January 2007 until March 2007, covering 23 different dates. The ''No Agenda'' tour DVD was released in late 2007. On 26 October 2007, he guest-presented the BBC political quiz show '' Have I Got News for You''. '' The Omid Djalili Show'' started on

BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and Flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includ ...

on 17 November 2007. The series was a mix of sketches and stand-up material. A second series was recorded in late 2008 and broadcast on BBC 1 on 20 April 2009. He performed on ''We Are Most Amused'' on

ITV1 ITV1 (formerly known as ITV) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the British media company ITV plc. It provides the ITV (TV network), Channel 3 ...

to mark

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's 60th birthday in 2008 and on ''We Are Most Amused and Amazed'' to mark his 70th birthday in 2018. In 2023, Djalili was due to appear in the ''Omid Djalili and Friends'' show in

Market Drayton Market Drayton is a market town and civil parish on the banks of the River Tern in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is close to the Cheshire and Staffordshire borders. It is located between the towns of Whitchurch, Shropshire, Wh ...

at the Festival Drayton Centre. Djalili did not appear in the tour due to threats against Djalili relating to the

Gaza war The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...

Acting career

Djalili has appeared in a number of films, most notably ''

Gladiator A gladiator ( , ) was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their ...

'', '' The Mummy'', '' Mean Machine'', ''

The World Is Not Enough ''The World Is Not Enough'' is a 1999 spy film, the nineteenth in the List of James Bond films, ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions and the third to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional Secret Intelligence Service, MI6 agent Jam ...

'', '' Alien Autopsy'', '' Spy Game'', '' Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow'', '' Grow Your Own'', ''

Notting Hill Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a wikt:cosmopolitan, cosmopolitan and multiculturalism, multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting ...

'', '' Mr Nice'', '' Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End'', '' Sex and the City 2'' and provides his voice in '' Over the Hedge''. He has observed that he usually appears as a generic Middle Eastern background character in many of these films, often commenting that he appears in the James Bond film as the "Second Azerbaijani oil pipe attendant". He appeared as Nasim in 22 episodes of the U.S.

sitcom A sitcom (short for situation comedy or situational comedy) is a genre of comedy produced for radio and television, that centers on a recurring cast of character (arts), characters as they navigate humorous situations within a consistent settin ...

'' Whoopi'', starring Whoopi Goldberg, and picked up an international film award for Best Supporting Actor in '' Casanova'', starring alongside

Heath Ledger Heath Andrew Ledger (4 April 1979 – 22 January 2008) was an Australian actor. After playing roles in several Australian television and film productions during the 1990s, he moved to the United States in 1998 to further develop his film care ...

and Jeremy Irons. On 12 February 2009, producer Cameron Mackintosh announced that Djalili would appear as the second Fagin in the new West End production of '' Oliver! '' at the

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and listed building, Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) an ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. Omid took over from Rowan Atkinson, who had been contracted until 18 July 2009. In 2009, Djalili became the voice of Yusuf Amir in the popular gaming series ''

Grand Theft Auto ''Grand Theft Auto'' (''GTA'') is an action-adventure video game series created by David Jones and Mike Dailly. Later titles were developed under the oversight of brothers Dan and Sam Houser, Leslie Benzies and Aaron Garbut. It is prima ...

''. He took up the role in the '' Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony'' spin-off game. In 2010, he starred in the David Baddiel-scripted film '' The Infidel''. In 2017, Djalili appeared in an acclaimed performance of ''

Fiddler on the Roof ''Fiddler on the Roof'' is a musical theatre, musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and musical theatre#Book musicals, book by Joseph Stein, set in the Pale of Settlement of Russian Empire, Imperial Russia in or around 19 ...

'' at the Chichester Festival Theatre. In 2023, Djalili reprised his role as the voice of Yusuf Amir in the fifth installment of the popular gaming series ''

''. He reprised the role as part of the '' Grand Theft Auto Online'' DLC, ''The Chop Shop''.

Other activities

In 2008, he was an official festival judge for the Noor Iranian Film Festival. In June 2010, Djalili appeared in a Meltdown Festival concert given by the

Philharmonia Orchestra The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI Classics, EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Rich ...

at London's

Queen Elizabeth Hall The Queen Elizabeth Hall (QEH) is a music venue on the South Bank in London, England, that hosts European classical music, classical, jazz, and avant-garde music, talks and dance performances. It was opened in 1967, with a concert conducted by ...

, performing the part of the narrator in 'Rubaiyat', a

tone poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement (music), movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. T ...

by American classical composer Alan Hovhaness which sets the words of Omar Khayyám to music. In February 2022 he shot two pilots of a chat show called ''Tonight With Omid'' for the BBC, one version in Persian (for

BBC Persian BBC Persian () is the Persian language broadcast station and subsidiary of BBC World Service which conveys the latest political, social, economical and sport news relevant to Iran and the world. Its headquarters are in London, United Kingdom. Pe ...

) and another in English. In August 2023, Djalili appeared on ITV's '' Kate Garraway's Life Stories'' series 22, episode 3.

Awards

Djalili has won awards for his comedy. These include the EMMA Award, '' Time Out'' Award, and LWT Comedy Award for Best Stand-up Comedian, Spirit of the Fringe Award as well as the One World Media Award for his

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

documentary, ''Bloody Foreigners''. He has also been nominated for awards, such as the Perrier Award for Best Comedian, the Gemini Award for Best Comedy Performance of 2003, the South Bank Award for Best Comedy of 2003, the

Royal Television Society The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...

Award for Best Stand-up, and the European TV Award for his ''Bloody Foreigners''.

Personal life

In 1992, Djalili married actress Annabel Knight, with whom he has three children. He is a practising Baháʼí. Djalili was present for the Iran Solidarity Rally that took place in

Trafalgar Square Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster in Central London. It was established in the early-19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. Its name commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar, the Royal Navy, ...

in January 2023 in support of protests in the wake of Jina (or Mahsa) Amini's custody and death.

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

Selected theatre

* '' Oliver!'', as Fagin, Director Rupert Goold, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 2009 * ''

'', as Tevye, Director Daniel Evans, Chichester Festival Theatre, 2017

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Djalili, Omid 1965 births Living people 20th-century Bahá'ís 20th-century English comedians 20th-century English male actors 21st-century Bahá'ís 21st-century English comedians 21st-century English male actors Actors from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Alumni of Ulster University British Bahá'ís Comedians from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Edinburgh Comedy Festival English Bahá'ís English male film actors English male television actors English male voice actors English people of Iranian descent English stand-up comedians People educated at Holland Park School Male actors from London People from Chelsea, London