"Nazanin Boniadi"

Nazanin Boniadi (English /ˈnɑːzəniːn ˈboʊnjɑːˌdiː/ Persian: نازنین بنیادی‎, IPA: [nɑzæˈniːn ɛ bonjɑˈdiː]; born 22 May 1980) is an Iranian actress.

Born in Tehran at the height of the Iranian Revolution, her parents relocated to London shortly thereafter. She performed violin and ballet as a young girl.

She attended a private high school and later moved to the United States where she earned a Bachelor's Degree, with Honors, in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Irvine. At UCI, she won the Chang Pin-Chun Undergraduate Research Award for molecular research involving cancer treatment and heart transplant rejection. She was also Assistant Editor-in-Chief of MedTimes, UCI's undergraduate medical newspaper.

Boniadi changed her career path from medicine and started pursuing acting in 2006. Her first major acting role was as Leyla Mir on the Emmy Award-winning daytime drama General Hospital and its SOAPnet spin-off series General Hospital: Night Shift, making 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.

Boniadi has also played supporting roles in several major Hollywood film productions, such as Charlie Wilson's War (directed by Mike Nichols), Iron Man (directed by Jon Favreau), and The Next Three Days (directed by Paul Haggis).

She played Nora, a love interest for Neil Patrick Harris' character Barney Stinson, on the sixth season of the hit CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother. She reprised this role during the show's seventh and ninth seasons.

In May 2013, Boniadi joined the cast of Homeland season 3, as CIA analyst, Fara Sherazi. She was promoted to series regular for the show's fourth season.

Boniadi also appeared in an eight-episode arc on season 3 of Scandal as antagonist Adnan Salif. She will portray Esther in the 2016 remake of Ben-Hur.

Boniadi is a spokeswoman for Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), with a focus on the unjust conviction and treatment of Iranian youth, women and prisoners of conscience. She has her own official blog page on the Amnesty International USA website and has written op-eds for media outlets such as CNN and The Huffington Post

Boniadi provided a voiceover to AIUSA's "Power of Words" public service announcement with Morgan Freeman, which won a Webby Award; campaigned with the organization for the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA); has served as a panellist and emcee for events related to Iranian rights, and spearheaded The Neda Project with AIUSA in May/June 2010.

In December 2010, she initiated an Amnesty International petition for Iranian film directors Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof, who had been convicted of "propaganda against the state". The petition was co-signed by prominent Hollywood directors and industry leaders such as Paul Haggis, Martin Scorsese, Sean Penn, Harvey Weinstein, Ron Howard and others, and generated more than 21,000 signatures. On 8 June 2011, she joined a delegation, led by Haggis and AIUSA Executive Director Larry Cox, to deliver the petition to the Iran Mission to the United Nations in New York.

On 3 June 2011, Boniadi joined Sarah Shourd in a rolling hunger strike in solidarity with Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal and wrote an article in support of the Free The Hikers campaign.

Boniadi received the 2011 Social Cinema Award at the Ischia Global Film & Music Festival for her human rights work with Amnesty International.

On 9 April 2012, Boniadi returned to her alma mater, UC-Irvine, in support of the Education Under Fire campaign, calling for an end to discrimination against and persecution of Baha'is in Iran.

Boniadi delivered the keynote closing remarks at the 2012 XX Factor, Amnesty International USA's annual town hall meeting on women's rights, in Washington, D.C.

She helped launch an Amnesty International petition and campaign with Roxana Saberi in December 2012, to free wrongfully imprisoned filmmaker Behrouz Ghobadi, brother of acclaimed filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi, in Iran. The petition was signed by prominent Hollywood directors such as Martin Scorsese and Paul Haggis, actors such as Liam Neeson, Mila Kunis, James Franco and Adrien Brody, as well as major film industry organizations and festivals.

On 22 January 2013, Amnesty International announced that Behrouz Ghobadi had been released on bail from prison in Iran.

She was a keynote speaker at Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson's 13th annual 'A World of Women for World Peace' conference in Dallas, Texas.

Boniadi is fluent in English and Farsi. She is a former Scientologist who had a brief relationship with Tom Cruise in 2004. The Church of Scientology vetted her along with dozens of other women as a potential wife for Cruise, but she was not selected. Her mother had been a Scientologist. She defines herself as a "non-practising Muslim".

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2007	The Game	Josie	2 Episodes
	General Hospital: Night Shift	Leyla Mir	13 Episodes
2007–2009	General Hospital	Leyla Mir	119 Episodes
2010	The Deep End	Heather Mosson	Episode: "To Have and to Hold"
	24	Blonde Woman	2 Episodes
	Hawthorne	Aneesa Amara	Episode: "Final Curtain"
2011	Suits	Lauren Pearl	Episode: "Errors and Omissions"
2011, 2014	How I Met Your Mother	Nora	Season 6–7 (recurring; 9 episodes) Season 9 (guest; 1 episode)
2012	CSI	Nurse Lauren	Episode: "Seeing Red"
	Best Friends Forever	Naya	2 Episodes
2013	Go On	Hannah	1 episode
	Grey's Anatomy	Amrita	1 episode
2013–2014	Homeland	Fara Sherazi	Season 3 (recurring; 6 episodes) Season 4 (series regular; 6 episodes)
2014	Scandal	Adnan Salif	Season 3 (recurring; 7 episodes)

Film

Year	Film	Role	Notes
2006	Kal: Yesterday & Tomorrow	Simmi	Short Film
2007	Gameface	Taylor
2008	Charlie Wilson's War	Afghan Refugee Woman	Uncredited
	Iron Man	Amira Ahmed
2009	Diplomacy	Persian Interpreter	Short Film
2010	The Next Three Days	Elaine
2012	Shirin in Love	Shirin
2015	Desert Dancer	Parisa Ghaffarian
2016	Ben-Hur		Filming

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/