fiction.wikisort.org - Actor

Omid Djalili (Persian: امید جلیلی; born 30 September 1965) is a British actor, comedian and writer.

Omid Djalili
Djalili at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival
Born	(1965-09-30) 30 September 1965 (age 56) Chelsea, London, England
Occupation	Actor comedian writer
Years active	1991–present
Spouse	Annabel Knight ​ (m. 1992)​
Children	3
Comedy career
Medium	Film stand-up television
Subject(s)	Religion race culture stereotypes human interaction

Early life and education

Djalili was born on 30 September 1965 in Chelsea, London, to Iranian Baháʼí parents.[1][2] He attended Holland Park School and then Ulster University in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, studying English and theatre studies.[3]

Comedy career

The first significant success of his stand-up comedy career was at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1995 with "Short, Fat Kebab Shop Owner's Son", followed by "The Arab and the Jew" with Jewish comedian Ivor Dembina in 1996.[4][5]

Djalili has performed in numerous countries, including Australia, Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Canada and the United States, where he had his own HBO Special.[6]

Djalili took part in a show for Comic Relief after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami and also in 2005 he appeared on the British TV show Top Gear as a celebrity driver.[7][8] The same year he broke Edinburgh Festival box office records with over 16,500 ticket sales.[9][10]

In 2006, Sky Television picked him to be the face of their Saturday night film premières, and he also announced a new tour of the UK called 'No Agenda', from January 2007 until March 2007, covering 23 different dates. The No Agenda tour DVD was released in late 2007.[11]

On 18 March 2007, Djalili was voted by the British public as the 60th best stand-up comedian in a Channel 4 programme "The 100 Greatest Stand-Ups",.[12][13] On 26 October 2007, he guest-presented the BBC political quiz show Have I Got News for You.[14] The Omid Djalili Show started on BBC1 on 17 November 2007. The series was a mix of sketches and stand-up material. A second series was recorded in late 2008 and began broadcast on BBC 1 on 20 April 2009. He performed on We Are Most Amused on ITV1 to mark Prince Charles's 60th birthday in 2008 and on We Are Most Amused and Amazed to mark his 70th birthday in 2018.[15]

Acting career

Djalili has appeared in a number of films, most notably Gladiator, The Mummy, Mean Machine, The World Is Not Enough, Alien Autopsy, Spy Game, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Grow Your Own, Notting Hill, Mr Nice, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End,[16] Sex and the City 2 and provides his voice in Over the Hedge.

He has observed that he usually appears as a generic Middle Eastern background character in many of these films, often commenting that he appears in the James Bond film as the "Second Azerbaijani oil pipe attendant".[17] He appeared as Nasim in 22 episodes of the U.S. sitcom Whoopi, starring Whoopi Goldberg, and picked up an international film award for Best Supporting Actor in Casanova, starring alongside Heath Ledger and Jeremy Irons.

On 12 February 2009, producer Cameron Mackintosh announced that Djalili would appear as the second Fagin in the new West End production of Oliver! at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London. Omid took over from Rowan Atkinson, who had been contracted until 18 July 2009.[18]

In 2009, Djalili became the voice of Yusuf Amir in the popular gaming series Grand Theft Auto. He took up the role in the Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony spin-off game. In 2010, he starred in the David Baddiel-scripted film The Infidel.

In 2010, Djalili starred in a series of TV and cinema adverts for Moneysupermarket.com.[19]

Djalili appeared in the short-lived NBC sitcom The Paul Reiser Show, which was a midseason replacement for the 2010–11 television season.[20]

For the BBC Learning project Off By Heart Shakespeare, Omid played Lord Capulet from Romeo and Juliet and delivered the speech "Hang thee, young baggage, disobedient wretch!"[21]

Djalili appears in the Sky TV adaptation of Moonfleet shooting in Ireland in 2013.[22]

He appeared in the second series of Thunderbirds Are Go in October 2016 as Horse Williams.^{[citation needed]}

Djalili provided his voice in the 2015 stop motion animated comedy Shaun the Sheep Movie.

In 2017 Djalili appeared in an acclaimed performance of Fiddler on the Roof at the Chichester Festival Theatre.[23]

In 2019 he appeared as Dr Martin Lanselius in the BBC adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.

In 2020 he began hosting the ITV game show Winning Combination.

Other activities

In 2008, he was an official festival judge for the Noor Iranian Film Festival. In June 2010, Djalili appeared in a Meltdown Festival concert[24] given by the Philharmonia Orchestra at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, performing the part of the narrator in 'Rubaiyat', a tone poem by American classical composer Alan Hovhaness which sets the words of Omar Khayyám to music.

He also appeared on the Graham Norton Show on 17 February 2012, alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Cuba Gooding Jr. He now presents the ITV daytime quiz show, Winning Combination.

In February 2022 he shot two pilots of a chat show called Tonight With Omid for the BBC, one version in Farsi (for BBC Persia) and another in English.[25]

Controversy

In 2019, Djalili was criticised for making disparaging remarks about the Welsh language on Twitter after he posted a photograph of a road sign written in Welsh and wrote underneath, "There are worse things than being Welsh, dyslexic & having a terrible stutter. But not many."[26] In response to the unfavourable reaction, Djalili added, "Going to suggest to Sioned a show with the superb replies," referring to Sioned Wiliam, the Head of Comedy at BBC Radio, who is Welsh. However, Djalili declined to apologise. Nigel Owens said that the joke "just wasn't funny", calling it a "cheap, offensive jibe at a nation's language which has needlessly insulted people who have experience with dyslexia or speech impediments".[27]

Awards

Djalili has won awards for his comedy. These include the EMMA Award, Time Out Award, and LWT Comedy Award for Best Stand-up Comedian, Spirit of the Fringe Award as well as the One World Media Award for his Channel 4 documentary, Bloody Foreigners.

He has also been nominated for awards, such as the Perrier Award for Best Comedian, the Gemini Award for Best Comedy Performance of 2003, the South Bank Award for Best Comedy of 2003, the Royal Television Society Award for Best Stand-up, and the European TV Award for his Bloody Foreigners.

Personal life

In 1992, Djalili married actress Annabel Knight, with whom he has three children: Isabella, Louis and Daniel. He is a practising Baháʼí.[1][2]

Djalili is a Chelsea fan, and has appeared many times on the club's in-house channel, Chelsea TV.[28][29]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1999	The Mummy	Warden Gad Hassan
	Notting Hill	Cashier at Coffee Shop
	Mad Cows	George
	The World Is Not Enough	Foreman
2000	Gladiator	Slave Trader
2001	Spy Game	Beirut: Doumet
	Mean Machine	Raj
2002	Anita and Me	Uncle Amman
2003	Cross My Heart	Riz
2004	Deadlines	Abdul Sayyaf
	The Calcium Kid	Herbie Bush
	Modigliani	Pablo Picasso
	Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow	Kaji
2005	Casanova	Lupo
2006	Alien Autopsy	Melik
	Over the Hedge	Tiger	Voice role
2007	Grow Your Own	Ali
	Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End	Askay / Pusasn
2008	The Love Guru	Guru Satchabigknoba
2009	Dead Man Running	"Bald Fat Fuck"
2010	The Infidel	Mahmud Nasir
	Sex and the City 2	Mr Safir
	Animals United	Bongo	Voice role
	Mr. Nice	Saleem Malik
2011	Big Fat Gypsy Gangster	Jik Jickkles
2015	Shaun the Sheep Movie	Trumper	Voice role
	Molly Moon and the Incredible Book of Hypnotism	Barry Rix
2016	The Comedian's Guide to Survival	Himself
2018	Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again	Greek customs officer
2018	The Samurai of Tsushima	Innkeeper	Voice role
2018	The Nutcracker and the Four Realms	Cavalier
2023	It's All Coming Back to Me		Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1995	Dressing for Breakfast	Turkish Man	Series 1 episode 4
1996	The Friday Night Armistice	Himself
1998	Alexei Sayle's Merry-Go-Round	Various
	Barking	Various Role	2 episodes
1999	The Ruth Rendell Mysteries	Mr Kaiafas	Episode: "The Lake of Darkness"
	The Bill	Yilmaz Demirtas
	Cleopatra	Storemaster	2 episodes
	Coming Soon	Amir Hassan	TV Movie
1999–2001	Small Potatoes	Hoss	13 episodes
2000	Black Books	Trebor
	Jason and the Argonauts	Castor	2 episodes
2001	So What Now?	Ken
	Baddiel's Syndrome	Chef
2002	Relic Hunter	Ahmid
2002–03	Dinotopia: the Series	Zipeau (voice)	10 episodes
	Lenny Henry in Pieces		2 episodes
2003	Between Iraq and a Hard Place	Iraqi Television Host	TV Movie
2003–04	Whoopi	Nasim Khatenjami	22 episodes
2004	Live at the Apollo	Himself
2005	Chopra Town	Ali Ergun	TV Movie
	One Night Stand	Himself	HBO
	My Family and Other Animals	Spiro	TV Movie
2006	Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive	Himself
	Jack Dee's Lead Balloon	Mr Tilak
	Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law	Perfectionist (voice)
2007	TV Heaven, Telly Hell	Guest
	Have I Got News For You	himself
	Premier League All Stars	Chelsea Celebrity player
	Dawn French's Boys Who Do Comedy	Himself
2007–09	The Omid Djalili Show	Himself, presenter, various roles	12 episodes
2008	Never Mind The Buzzcocks	Guest panellist
	Headcases	Mohamed Al Fayed
2009	Would I Lie To You?	Guest panellist	one episode
2011	The Paul Reiser Show	Habib	7 episodes
2012	Omid Djalili's Little Cracker	Tobacconist
2013	Splash!	Contestant
	Moonfleet	Aldobrand	2 episodes
2014	The Great Sport Relief Bake Off	Guest presenter	one episode
	Question Time	Guest panellist
2015–16	Dickensian	Mr Venus	11 episodes
2016	Insert Name Here	Guest panellist
	The One Show	Guest presenter	1 episode
2016–18	Stan Lee's Lucky Man	Kamil	9 episodes
2017	Thunderbirds Are Go	Horse Williams	voice; 1 episode[30]
2018	All Together Now Celebrities	Contestant	2nd Place
2019	Queens of Mystery
2019	His Dark Materials	Dr Lanselius	Episode: "Armour"
2020	The Letter for the King	Sir Fantumar
2020	The Chase: Celebrity Special	Contestant	Series 10, Episode 5, 2020-10-10
2020–	Winning Combination	Presenter
2020	Sunday Brunch	Guest	Series 9, Episode 41; 22 November 2020[31]
2020	Celebrity Mastermind	Contestant	Series 18, Episode 1, 19 December 2020[32]
2020	Secrets of the Apollo	Guest contributor	28 December 2020[33]
2021	Michael McIntyre's The Wheel	Celebrity expert	Series 1, Episode 6; 2 January 2021[34]
	James Martin’s Saturday Morning	Guest	Series 4, Episode 3; 16 January 2021[35]
2022	Tonight with Omid	Host	Pilot in Farsi and English

Video games

Year	Title	Role	Ref.
2009	Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony	Yusuf Amir	[36]
	50 Cent: Blood on the Sand	Eddie	[37]

Stand-up DVDs

• No Agenda: Live at the London Palladium (26 November 2007)
• Live in London (16 November 2009)
• Tour of Duty (19 November 2012)

See also

• Iranian stand-up comedy

References

External links

• Official website
• Omid Djalili at IMDb
• Omid Djalili at Rotten Tomatoes
• Omid Djalili on Twitter
• Omid Djalili on Instagram
• Omid Djalili on Facebook

На других языках

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- [en] Omid Djalili

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[es] Omid Djalili

Omid Djalili (en persa, امید جلیلی‎, Londres, 30 de septiembre de 1965) es un cómico, actor y productor británico de origen iraní.

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[ru] Джалили, Омид

Омид Джалили (англ. Omid Djalili; перс. امید جلیلی‎; род. 30 сентября 1965 (1965-09-30), Челси, Англия[1]) — ирано-английский стендап-комик, актёр и продюсер.

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