Marwan Kenzari (born 16 January 1983 in The Hague, Netherlands) is a Dutch actor of Tunisian descent.
Kenzari is best known for portraying villainous Jafar in the 2019 remake of Disney's 1992 animated film Aladdin, itself an adaptation of the titular story from Arabian Nights. Upon being announced for the role, Kenzari quickly became noted as "Hot Jafar" on the Internet before the movie was actually released.
Prior to his international breakthrough, Kenzari was mostly known in his native Netherlands, appearing in things like the police procedural Flikken Maastricht.
He made his English-language debut in the 2016 film Collide, followed by the remake of Ben-Hur and historical drama The Promise. He later appeared in Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express and The Mummy, both in 2017.
He began dating Dutch model Nora Ponse in 2018. The couple are engaged and have one child together, a son.
Selected filmography:
- Flikken Maastricht (2008 — 2010) as Luca de Keyzer
- Ben-Hur (2016) as Druses
- The Promise (2016) as Emre Ogan
- The Mummy (2017) as Malik
- What Happened to Monday (2017) as Adrian Knowles
- Murder on the Orient Express as Pierre Michel
- Aladdin (2019) as Jafar
- Instinct (2019) as Idris
- The Old Guard (2020) as Yusuf al-Kaysani / Joe
- Black Adam (2022) as Ishmael Gregor / Sabbac and King Akh-Ton
- Ghosted (2023) as Marco
Kenzari's life and career provide examples of:
- Omniglot: Fluent in Dutch, Arabic, English, and French. In their couples' interview for Vogue, his girlfriend revealed he is also learning Russian.
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's 6'3" (1.9 meters) tall and memetic for being highly attractive.
- Typecasting: Villains and thugs in recent years. 2019 to 2022 saw him playing the Big Bad in Aladdin and Black Adam, a serial rapist in Instinct, and a war criminal in De Oost.
