Golshifteh Farahani: From Tehran to Extraction and a Life in Exile

In 2008, a 24-year-old Iranian actress flew to Hollywood to film a spy thriller with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. The role in Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies made her the first Iranian actress since the 1979 revolution to appear in a major Hollywood production. It also cost her a country. Golshifteh Farahani has lived in exile in France ever since.

Eighteen years on, that exile has become one of the most varied careers in world cinema. She has worked with Asghar Farhadi, Jim Jarmusch and Julia Ducournau, sailed with Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, and fought beside Chris Hemsworth as the mercenary Nik Khan in Netflix’s Extraction films. In October 2026 she appeared in Apple’s Matchbox: The Movie, and she has just finished filming Extraction 3. This is her story.

Who Is Golshifteh Farahani?

Golshifteh Farahani is an Iranian-born actress based in France, known internationally as Nik Khan in Netflix’s Extraction franchise and for films including About Elly, The Patience Stone, Paterson and Reading Lolita in Tehran. She was a star in Iran as a teenager, left the country after making Body of Lies in 2008, and now works across French, American and international productions. She is also a trained musician and an outspoken supporter of women’s rights in Iran.

How Old Is Golshifteh Farahani?

Golshifteh Farahani is 43 years old. She was born on 10 July 1983 in Tehran.

Early Life and Family

Farahani grew up in an artistic family in Tehran. Her father, Behzad Farahani, is an actor and theatre director, and her sister, Shaghayegh Farahani, is also an actress. She began acting on stage at six and trained in music, studying piano at a Tehran music school; she still sings and plays several instruments.

At 14 she made her film debut in Dariush Mehrjui’s The Pear Tree (1998), winning the Best Actress award in the international section of Iran’s Fajr Film Festival. The role made her one of the best-known young actresses in Iranian cinema.

Career

Iranian cinema and About Elly (1998 to 2009)

Through the 2000s she worked steadily in Iranian films. Her final Iranian role before leaving was in Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly (2009), in which she played Sepideh, the woman who organises a seaside holiday that goes wrong. The film won Farhadi the Silver Bear for Best Director at Berlin.

Body of Lies and exile (2008)

Her role as a nurse in Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies (2008) broke a long silence: no Iranian actress had appeared in a major Hollywood film since the 1979 revolution. She appeared at promotional events without a headscarf, and afterwards she settled in Paris. In 2012, after she posed nude for a French magazine shoot, she said she had been told she was no longer welcome to return to Iran.

French and international cinema (2009 to 2019)

In France she found a new career. She led Atiq Rahimi’s The Patience Stone (2012), playing a woman confessing her secrets to her comatose husband, and was nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress. She played Laura, the dreamer married to Adam Driver’s bus driver, in Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson (2016), and the sea witch Shansa in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017). In Eva Husson’s Girls of the Sun (2018), which competed at Cannes, she led an all-female unit of Kurdish fighters.

Extraction and Invasion (2020 to 2025)

Netflix’s Extraction (2020) gave her a global mainstream audience as Nik Khan, the handler and closest ally of Chris Hemsworth’s mercenary Tyler Rake. She returned for Extraction 2 (2023), with a bigger role in the action. On Apple TV she starred in the science-fiction series Invasion for three seasons. In 2024 she played the writer Azar Nafisi in Eran Riklis’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, a story about women secretly reading banned books in the Islamic Republic, and in 2025 she played the mother in Julia Ducournau’s Alpha, which competed at Cannes.

What Is Golshifteh Farahani Doing Now? Latest Updates in 2026

On 9 October 2026 she appeared as Robbie in Matchbox: The Movie, Apple TV’s action comedy based on Mattel’s toy cars, directed by her Extraction director Sam Hargrave and led by John Cena and Jessica Biel. The ensemble also includes Indian actor Randeep Hooda.

Netflix confirmed in April 2026 that she would return as Nik Khan in Extraction 3, again opposite Chris Hemsworth and Idris Elba, with Sam Hargrave directing. Filming began in mid-2026 across Australia and Europe, and in August Pierce Brosnan, Don Lee and Joe Taslim joined the cast. No release date has been announced. In May 2026 she was also pulled into French political headlines, when a book by a journalist claimed she had shared a close, platonic friendship with President Emmanuel Macron; Brigitte Macron’s representatives denied the book’s account, and Farahani had already dismissed such rumours in an interview with Le Point, saying some people need to invent romances. In French cinema, she was announced in June 2026 as part of the international cast of Arnaud Desplechin’s next film, alongside Noémie Merlant and Felicity Jones. She is also attached to Les Clochettes de Kaboul (When She Hears the Bells), a project in development whose cast includes Indian actor and Bigg Boss 20 contestant Rohed Khan; no release date has been set.

Personal Life and Activism

Farahani has lived in France since 2008 and has not returned to work in Iran. She has used her platform to support women’s rights in her home country, especially during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022, and she has spoken about the cost of exile in many interviews. She keeps most details of her private life out of the press.

Belloria’s View

Few actors have built a career this wide from a starting point this hard. Farahani lost her home industry at 24 and could easily have been typecast as the exiled Iranian woman. Instead she moved between French art films, Netflix action and Hollywood franchises without seeming to choose between them, and the quality has stayed high. Reading Lolita in Tehran was the moment the two halves of her life met on screen. Extraction 3 will bring the bigger audience, but her most interesting work is likely to stay in the smaller films she keeps making between the blockbusters.

Social Media Stats

Social media figures are approximate and may change.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Belloria Stories