Nazanin Boniadi (Persian: نازنین بنیادی pronounced Naa-za-neen Bon-yaadi) born May 22, 1980 in Tehran, Iran is a British Iranian actress currently living and working in the US. She got her first big break on the ABC soap opera, General Hospital and its SOAPnet spin-off series, General Hospital: Night Shift as Nurse Leyla Mir. She has mostly starred in TV with a few movies to her credit also, including the recent blockbuster "Iron Man".

Early life

She was born in Tehran to educated parents who relocated to London when she was a child, she was educated at a private high school and was astute at study; she set out on a path to study medicine and earned a Bachelor's Degree, with Honors, in Biological Sciences from the University of California Irvine. During this period she won the Chang Pin-Chun Undergraduate Research Award for molecular research into finding a cure for cancer and heart transplant rejection and was Assistant Editor-in-Chief of MedTimes, UCI's undergraduate medical newspaper.

After all her medical study and her parents desire for her to be a doctor Nazanin decided that she would not truly be happy on that path but wanted instead to be an actress. Nazanin had always had a creative streak, having had lessons in and performing violin and ballet as a young girl.

Acting

Her first credit was hosting the UK children's television show "Early Bird" going on to land several roles in TV and film she moved to the US where she eventually got the part of Leyla Mir on General Hospital, her first big, regular role and which also makes her the first contract actor to play a Middle Eastern character in American daytime television history. She is also the first Iranian-born actress to ever be on contract on an American soap opera.

She was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for "Outstanding Actress in a Daytime Drama Series" in 2008 for her role in General Hospital.

USC Film School graduate and Directors Guild of America scholarship recipient, Freya Parekh, stated after directing Nazanin in the film Kal: "Yesterday & Tomorrow";

Nazanin has recently landed a few roles in a few major Hollywood productions namely Charlie Wilson's War and Iron Man in the former she has said that the experience of acting opposite Tom Hanks (as that was who her particular character has dialogue with) was a wonderful experience and that being directed by Mike Nichols was exhilarating and a dream come true. She had to go through 4 hours of make up to be aged 10 years for the role of an Afghan refugee in the film about the Soviet-Afghan war.

On her character in General Hospital she has said that

Her General Hospital character died from exposure to a biotoxin in February 2009.

Human rights

As a devoted human rights activist and an Official Spokesperson for Amnesty International USA, Nazanin has worked at a grassroots level and appeared on numerous international TV and radio programs to campaign for the rights of disenfranchised populations across the world. In particular, she has been very involved in safeguarding human rights by participating in events that bring attention to the unjust conviction and treatment of Iranian youth, women and prisoners of conscience.

Filmography

• The Next Three Days (2010) as "Elaine"
• Hawthorne (2010) as "Aneesa Amara"
• 24 (2010) as "Blonde Woman"
• The Deep End (2010) as "Rhazia Kahn"
• Diplomacy (2009) as "Persian Interpreter"
• General Hospital (2007-2009) as "Leyla Mir"
• Iron Man (2008) as "Amira Ahmed"
• Shades of Ray (2008) as "Farah"
• Charlie Wilson's War (2007) as "Afghan refugee woman"
• General Hospital: Night Shift (2007) as "Leyla Mir"
• The Game (2007) as "Josie"
• Gameface (2007) as "Taylor"
• Kal: Yesterday & Tomorrow (2006) as "Simmi"

External links

• Nazanin Boniadi at the Internet Movie Database
• Nazanin Boniadi at TV.com
• Boniadi profile from ABC's General Hospital site
• Interview with BBC Persia
• Persian Mirror article on Boniadi