Nazanin Boniadi is one of the few people in the entertainment business who embodies the combination of art and activism. The British-Iranian actress was born during the Iranian Revolution, and she has made a name for herself by being strong, adaptable, and dedicated to human rights. As of October 2025, Boniadi is still captivating audiences with her on-screen presence while speaking out for freedom and justice, especially for women in Iran. Her journey from being a science prodigy to a famous actress in movies like Iron Man and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power shows how people can change and find meaning in their lives.
A Basis for Exile and Excellence in Early Life and School
Nazanin Boniadi was born in Tehran, Iran, on May 22, 1980, just a few weeks before the Iranian Revolution of 1979 changed her family’s life forever. Boniadi and her parents fled as political refugees less than a month after she was born. They sought asylum in London, where she spent her early years. She grew up in the diverse neighborhood of Hampstead and got into the arts at a young age, learning to play the violin and dance ballet. But the only time she went back to Iran was when she was a teenager. It was a sad visit that made her feel even more distant because she was in exile.
Boniadi’s anchor was her education. Before moving to the United States at age 19 to study at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), she went to a well-known private school in London. She earned a Bachelor of Science with honors in biological sciences there and won the prestigious Chang Pin-Chun Undergraduate Research Award for her groundbreaking work on cancer treatments and heart transplant rejection. She worked as an assistant editor-in-chief for UCI’s MedTimes medical newspaper, which helped her develop a sharp, curious mind. Boniadi first wanted to be a doctor, but in 2006 she changed her mind and became an actress instead. In 2009, she took a contemporary drama course at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, which helped her improve her skills and marked the start of her professional rise.
Acting: From Soap Operas to Superhero Stories
Boniadi’s entry into Hollywood was a big deal. In 2007, she got the part of Leyla Mir on ABC’s General Hospital. She was the first contract actor to play a Middle Eastern character on American daytime TV and the first actress from Iran to do so. She was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Daytime Drama Series in 2008 for her two years on the show, which included the spin-off General Hospital: Night Shift.
After that, Boniadi’s career took off in many different areas. In seasons six and seven of CBS’s How I Met Your Mother (2011, reprised 2014), she played Nora, the love interest of Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris). She had guest roles on popular shows like 24 (2010), Suits (2011), CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2012), Grey’s Anatomy (2013), and Go On (2013). Her role as the sly Adnan Salif in season three of ABC’s Scandal (2014) showed off her edge, and her role as CIA analyst Fara Sherazi in Showtime’s Homeland (2013–2014) earned her a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) nomination for Outstanding Drama Ensemble in 2015.
Her film roles made her a star. In Charlie Wilson’s War (2007), she played an Afghan refugee without credit. This led to a credited role as Amira in Marvel’s Iron Man (2008). She played Shirin in the romantic comedy Shirin in Love (2012), Parisa Ghaffarian in the biopic Desert Dancer (2015), and Esther in the 2016 remake of Ben-Hur. In Hotel Mumbai (2018), Boniadi played survivor Zahra Kashani during the 2008 terrorist attacks. Her raw intensity earned her an Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) nomination. She played Rudi Bakhtiar in Bombshell (2019) and lent her voice to a hologram in Passengers (2016).
Boniadi was praised for her double role as Clare Quayle in Starz’s sci-fi thriller Counterpart (2017–2018). She reached new heights as Bronwyn, a healer and single mother, in Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022). She left the show before season two in 2024, saying it had nothing to do with her activism, but the role made her more famous around the world. She joined the cast of the independent thriller The Saviors in December 2024. The movie stars Adam Scott and Danielle Deadwyler and is still in post-production as of October 2025.
Boniadi narrated the 2014 Iranian documentary To Light a Candle on Bahá’í persecution and starred with George Clooney in a 2012 Nespresso ad. This shows that she is both commercially savvy and artistically talented.
A Voice for the Voiceless: Activism and a Legacy of Helping Others
Boniadi has as much of an impact off-screen as she does on-screen. She has been a dedicated advocate since 2009 and was the spokesperson for Amnesty International USA until 2015. She is still a “Artist of Conscience.” As the UK Ambassador for Amnesty International since 2020, she has worked on women’s rights and Iran. She has worked on a lot of things, like speaking the 2009 PSA “Power of Words” (which Morgan Freeman introduced and won a Webby Award), campaigning for the International Violence Against Women Act, and leading petitions for Iranian filmmakers who were arrested, like Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof (2010–2011), which got more than 21,000 signatures.
In 2011, she went on a hunger strike for American hikers who were being held in Iran, and she supported the “Education Under Fire” campaign against the persecution of Bahá’ís. Boniadi gave the main speech at Amnesty’s XX Factor on women’s rights in 2012 and started a successful petition for filmmaker Behrouz Ghobadi in 2012–2013. She has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 2014 (lifetime member since 2020) and served on the board of the Center for Human Rights in Iran from 2015 to 2021.
Mahsa Amini’s death in 2022 sparked her most passionate activism. Boniadi got support from around the world for Iran’s “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests. She met with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in October 2022 and spoke to the UN Security Council in November, calling the hijab a “cultural myth.” In a 2023 interview with ABC News, she praised Australia’s decision to kick the Islamic Republic out of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women and called for Iran’s IRGC to be labeled a terrorist group. Her opinion pieces in CNN, The Washington Post, and Defense One—from criticizing Iran’s human rights failures during COVID-19 (2020) to warning about the dangers of silence (2018)—show how clear her morals are.
The 2014 Program for Torture Victims’ City of Second Chances Award, Freedom House’s Raising Awareness Award (2020), the Ellis Island Medal of Honor (2020), and the 2023 Sydney Peace Prize for human rights advocacy all honor this duality.
Boniadi is still a powerful figure as of October 2025. She recently spoke at Iceland’s #ImagineForum2025 with Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza. She met with Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, Iceland’s foreign minister, and praised Iceland’s moral leadership on Iran’s gender apartheid and UN fact-finding missions. On October 2, she released a bilingual manifesto for a “free, secular, and undivided Iran” that promised respectful dialogue, democratic elections, and unity against the regime. This was similar to what Martin Luther King Jr. and Persian poet Attar said. Her X posts, which range from praising Iceland’s solidarity to sharing dissident Toomaj Salehi’s wisdom on political discourse, show that she is a bridge-builder.
Faith, trauma, and triumph in my own life
Boniadi speaks both English and Persian. She lives in Los Angeles and says she is British. In 2025, her net worth is thought to be $5 million. She and her family have talked about her involvement with Scientology in the mid-2000s. The Church’s Office of Special Affairs checked her out before she entered into a short, planned relationship with Tom Cruise from 2004 to 2005. It ended suddenly, though, because of alleged punishments. She left the Church not long after that and gave testimony to the FBI in 2010. In a 2019 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Boniadi said that her role in Counterpart was “therapeutic” and that she used themes of getting rid of indoctrination in her art.
Boniadi keeps her love life private, but she puts a lot of energy into activism. In 2017, she famously tweeted her support for Leah Remini and Mike Rinder’s Scientology and the Aftermath. What does she say? “Give in on everything but the truth.”
Legacy: A Light for Change
Nazanin Boniadi’s life crosses borders, mixing the glitz of Hollywood with the hard work of fighting for justice around the world. From historic TV breakthroughs to the UN podium, she shows that one brave voice can be heard all over the world. As Iran goes through hard times and The Saviors gets closer to being released, Boniadi’s star rises. This reminds us that we are weak alone but strong together. “We are the Simorgh no tyrant can defeat,” she said through Attar.
