Shohreh Aghdashloo (Persian: شهره آغداشلو ; born May 11, 1952 in Tehran, Iran) is an Iranian-American actress.
Aghdashloo is known for her prolific career in film, which began in her native Iran during The '70s. She left the country in 1979 due to the Islamic Revolution.
It wasn't until the 2000s, however, that Aghdashloo began receiving international attention. She appeared in the 2000 film Surviving Paradise —the first English-language Iranian film to be distributed in the United States— and her performance in 2003's House of Sand and Fog earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Because of her ethnicity, Hollywood often casts Aghdashloo as minor characters of Middle Eastern and/or Persian descent (and in one case, Indian) but that's steadily changed over time. Many of her roles throughout The New '10s have been in genre-based (usually Science Fiction) works like Star Trek Beyond, Syfy's The Expanse, and Netflix's Marvel series The Punisher (2017).
She's also known for her deep, sultry voice, which has lead to voice acting roles in projects like the Destiny and Mass Effect video game franchises, and Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Sea of Monsters.
Selected filmography:
- Twenty Bucks (1993) as Ghada Holiday
- House of Sand and Fog (2003) as Nadi Behrani note
- 24 (2005) as Dina Araz
- The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) as Dr. Sadira Adani
- The Lake House (2006) as Dr. Anna Klyczynski
- American Dreamz (2006) as Mrs. Nazneen Riza
- X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) as Dr. Kavita Rao
- The Nativity Story (2006) as Elizabeth
- House of Saddam (2008) as Sajida Talfah
- The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (2008) as Professor Nasrin Mehani
- The Stoning of Soraya M. (2008) as Zahra Khanum
- Flash Forward (2009) as Nhadra Udaya
- Mass Effect 2 (2010) as Admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbay (voice)
- Mass Effect 3 (2012)
- The Adjustment Bureau (2011) as The Chairman note
- The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2013) as Evette Onat
- Grimm (2013) as Stefania Vaduva Popescu
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Sea of Monsters (2013) as the Oracle (voice)
- Rosewater (2014) as Moloojoon
- Destiny (2014) as Lakshmi-2 (voice)
- Destiny 2 (2017)
- The Expanse (2015 — 2021) as Chrisjen Avasarala
- Star Trek Beyond (2016) as Commodore Paris
- The Punisher (2017) as Farah Madani
- Arcane (2021) as Head Enforcer Grayson (voice)
- Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) as Gozer (voice)
- Assassin's Creed: Mirage (2023)
- Renfield (2023) as Bellafrancesca Lobo
- Damsel (2024) as Dragon (voice)
- Man and Witch: The Dance of a Thousand Steps (2024)
