The exiles of tehrangeles

Shohreh Ahdashloo Still Remembers the Blood, bitter in her mouth. IT spildled from a gash in Her head after a hip of stones hit her during a pro-democracy rallly in tehran. The Year Was 1979. The islamic Revolution Was Convulsing Iran. She was 26.

“The Sky Was Full of Stones,” She Recalls. “I was every so angry. I was numb. At that moment, i Decides that no, no, no. I need to leave.”

She Fled Under Cover of Night, Making Her Way Through Istanbul, Yugoslavia and Paris Before Setting in London and Eventuly Hollywood.

She’s Never Returned. “I am banned,” she explays. “If i do, they will kill me.”

Following Recent Israeli and American Air Strikes in Iran-Widly Seen As the MOST DIRECT CONFRONATION BETWEEN IRAN AND THE WEST IN DECADES-The Oscar-Nominated Actress. But this time, GRIEF AND FEAR Were Tinged with A Fleeting Hope for Change That Quickly Gave Way to Despair.

“WARS ABOUT DNAVASTATION AND MISERY,” AGHDASHLOOO SAYS, HER SIGNATURE Gravelly Voice Occasionally Matriarch On 24A Cultural Touchstone of Post-9/11 American. “BUT This War Gave US Mixed Feelings, Including Hope It Might Bring Freedom to Iran. Insthead, The Regime’s Grip Has Only Tighhened.”

As Israel and Iran Retreat Into A Fragile Ceasefire, She and Other Iranian Artists in Hollywood and Beyond Are Still Grappling With the Cultural and Emotion Fallut.

At a Time WHEN CULTURE WARS OVER IMMIGration and Inclusion Are Buffeting The Us, Their Stories Reflect The Challenge of Carrying An Identity Intextricably Bound to a a ate Wy. It with Empathy and Authenticity. Torn Between Belfing and Resistance, They Show How A New Generation Is Using Storytelling To Redefine What Its To Be Iranian American.

For Many, The Conflict Stirred Dashed Hopes for Regime Change While Reigning Fears of Xenophobia Creeping Back Into Politics and Pop Culture. It Also Laid Bare Simmering Tensions with Iranian Diaspora – Now Roughly 500,000 Strong, The Largest Outside Iran.

AGHDASHLOO SAYS HER ACCENT AND MIDDLE EASTERN ORIGINS HAVE NOT FELT LIMITING. She have played Powerful Women Like She is, Who Were Shaped by The Forces of History While Being Agents of Their Own Destinies. HER ROLE AS A TRRORORIST ON 24 Drew Backlash from the Diaspora. But She Says She Welcomed The CHANCE TO PLAY SUCH A COMPLEX AND LAYERED Character.

Still, she Fears that’s Tensions Could Trigger A Return to Two-Dimensional Villains Like Those that Proliferated Durying the 1980s and 1990s in the aftermath of the IRAN HOSTAG. “I am hoping from the bottom of my heart that this will not Happen,“ She Says.

If the story of the Iranian Diaspora Were a Film, it would be a Sweeping Epic Marked by Represion, Exile and Reinvention. IT MIGHT OPEN IN 1979, WHEN A PROFLIGATE MONARCH – SO ENAMORED OF HOLLYWOOD that he os hosted elizabeth taylor and richard burton at teheran’s niavarana palace Ayatollah khomeini, sending tens of thonsands fleeing intell.

Many Settled in Southern California, WHERE SWAGGERING CREATIVITY AND Bikini-Clad Beachgogoers Offered A Striking Contrast to the Clerics Back Home. Persian Grocery Stores, Bakeries and Synagogues Serving the Iranian Jewish Community Spruted Across Los Angeles-Especlami in Westwood, Beverly Hills and Pico-Rozon-EARNING-EARNING-EARNING.

While Many First-Generation Iranian American Parents Urged Their Children to Become Doctors, Lawyers and Engineers, Some Courdn’t Resist Hollywood’s Allure.

AGHDASHLOOO EARned An Oscar Nomination for Best Supporting Actress for 2003’s House of Sand and Fog. Bob Yari Was A Producer on 2004’s CrashWHICH WON BEST PICTURE. Maz Jobrani and Nasim Pedrad Chose Trenchant Comedy As Their Mist Potnt Artistic Weapon.

Like Aghdashloo, Comedians Jobrani and Pedrad Have Also Been Shaped by The Rupture of Exile.

Jobrani Fled Iran As A Child, Arriving in California at 6. In His 20s, The Edie Murphy-Ossssed Comic Droped Out of a UCLA PH.D. Program in Political Science to Pursue Stand-Up. The Move Horrified His Iranian Mother, Who Hoped He’d Become a Doctor – or at the very least, a mechanic. “EveryBody Needs A Mechanic,” she told him. “Nobody Needs A Comedian!”

One of his FIRST BIG BREAKS WAS A MADE-FORER-TELEVISION CHUCK NORRIS MOVIE, PLAYING A “BOMB-MAKING TERRORIST TRYING TO LAY LOW IN CHICAGO by Wearing A Turban.” He provedted that a terrorist woldn’t wear a Turban But Was Overruled. HE DOOK The ROLE – THEN PANICED, WRITING TO NORRIS AND BEGING HIM NOT TO RELEASE The FILM. HE SAYS NORRIS IGNOREED HIM.

Over The Course of Two Decades, Jobrani Has Scaled the Heights of Comedy by Lampooning These Tire TRID TROPES WHILE MINING HIS IMIGRANT ANXIEY.

“I’m Iranian American – Part of Me Likes Me, Part of Me Hates Me,” He Quipped at the Hollywood Improv, A Week After the First Israeli Air Strikes. “Part of me Thinks I Should have a nuclear Program. The Other Part Thinks i can be trusted with one.”

Jobrani Credits Mindy Kaling, Pedrad and Ramy Youssef for Shifting Hollywood’s Representation of Minorities. Still, He Says The Recent War Has Has Stoked Fears of A Cultural Relapse and Warns that Far-Right Fight Fighht Figure Like Like Lice Laura Loura Lomer Sprade of Cenole of the Cenole Sleepener Cenole of the User-Use.

While His Axis of Evil Comedy Tour-A Post-9/11 ShowCase of Middle Eastern Comedians-Drew Crowds Througout the Us and The Middle East, Jobrani Has No A-Tap. A 12-day War Offers Limited Material in A Country Whore Mist Americans Still Can’s Leaders, He Says.

Still, Iran Is Never Far From His Mind.

“IT’S EXHAUSTING. IRAN IS ALWAYS IN THE NEWS,” HE MUSES. “SomeTimes I Wish I Were Swedish.”

That imocial weight is Familiar to Pedrad, The Comedian and Writer Who Has Helped Reimagine What Its To Be Iranian American On Television. She Says She ExperienCed “Emotional Dissonance” in Responsse to the Recent War.

“On One Hand, We Wonder If We’re Finally in A Moment of Reckoning for This Brutal Regime,“ She Says. “On the Other Hand, We Brace Ourselves, Knowing How Ohten Tese Moments End in Further Violence and Represion.”

Pedrad Made History As The FIRST IRANIAN AMERICAN CASTMEMBER ON Saturday Night Livebefore bending age and gender to play a gawky 14-year-gland persons Chad. IT WAS ONE OF THE FIRST AMERICAN TV SHOWS Anchored by an Iranian American Family.

Born in Tehran and Raised in California, Pedrad Still Has Family in Iran. She Became Active During the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom Movement and Is Now Developing A Project Shaped by that work. She adds that even a dark and repressive regime Could be a catalyst for for comedy: “While I Can’t Think of Anything Less Hiliarous than the islamic republic To Process the World. ”

Pedrad Says that Chad Was A Watershed Moment for A Persian American Like Her. “I didn’t grow seeing person people people on tv, let alone Ones that Felt Written from A Place of Empathy or Humanity,“ She Says.

She adds the waait for fully developed Iranian American Stories Reflects How Young the Diaspora is. “My Paarents’ Generation Escaped a Revolution and Fled to this Country Just Trying to Create Some Stability and Assimilate,“ She Says. “For them, the priority was survival. For me, it was like, ‘ok coool, now that we’ve survived – obvioses with my help – how do i become a sketch comedian?’ ‘?’ I kind of a jarring leap to make in a sngle genetation. ”

Thought Jobrani, Pedrad and Other Have Reshamped How Iranian Americans See Themselves – and are Seen – in Popular Culture, The Latest Conflicts have Revealed Painful Divisions. These religious, Political and Generational Fissures Defeced As Israeli and American Air Strikes Pummeled Iran, and the Devastation in Gaza Forced A Reckoning.

At a recent Anti-Iran Protest Outside the West La Federal Building, Demonstrators Wearing “Miga”-Make Iran Great Again-Hats Blasted Persian Music and Waved American and Israeli. Other feared that israeli Bombs would Only Embolden Iran’s Hardliners.

Sitting in his office covered with Movie Posters, Mark Amin – One of the Few Majoor Iranian American Producers in Hollywood – Says There Has Long Been A Depural Cultural Kinship Between Iranian Diaspora. That bond was rooted in the experience of exile; A common language, Farsi; and Shared Opposition to the Iranian Regime.

Still, He Notes, The War in Gaza Has Been Polarizing, Even As Most Iranian Americans Reject the Islamic Republic’s Support for Groups Like Hamas and Hezbollah.

“IT HAS BEEN A STRESSFUL TIME,” SAYS AMIN, WHO CAME FROM RAFSANJAN TO The US IN 1967 AND Rose from Running Video Stores to Produce Frida an Girl MOST LIKELY. HE RECENTLY Executive Produced The ApprenticeThe Trump Biopic Applauded at Cannes. His sister fled tehran by Taxi after israeli Air Strikes Destroyed a Neighbor’s House.

The Recent 12-Day War Exposed A Fault Line with the Diaspora. Many Iranian Jews Feel An Abringing Support for Israel, Seeing It As A NECCESARY Counterweight To Iran and A Belicose Regime for Which “Death to Israel” has long be. For Many Muslim Iranian Americans, However – Even Those Vehemently Critical of Tehran – The War Also Stirred Visceral Anger and Solidarity Over the Devastation in Gaza. Support for palestinian righs does not equate to Support for the islamic republic of iran, but it is a prism through which many View the Conflict.

The Iranian Diaspora is extraordinarily Diverse, and Political and Generational Outlooks ofTen Transcend Religious Lines. Just as many muslim Iranian American One Thing Appears to Be Clear: Both Groups Share A Deep Desire for a Free and Democratic Iran, Even If they SomeTimes Diffeter On How To get there.

But The Carnage in Gaza Has Made Public Expressions of Solidarity More Fraugh.

Jobrani Says He Felt Devastated After The Oct. 7 Attacks and struggmed to find anything funny to say about israel. The Closest He Got Was A Bit About A Parking AttDant Calling HIM “HAMAZ.” Risky, But It Got Laughs.

Ava Lalezarzadeh, A Jewish Iranian American Actress, Recently Starred On Broadway in EnglishA Pulitzer Prize-Winning Play About Four Adult Students in Iran Preparing for an English Exam. Offstage, she have also been navigatin G Her Multiple Identities.

“My Closest Friends Are Persian, Whose Paarents Are In Iran, and Israeli, Whose Parents Are In Israel,“ She Says. “IT’s Heart-Wrenching to Watch Both of Your Communities Hurt and Suffer and Be Scared for Their Families.”

She grew up 90 minutes east of los angeles in a person-Jewish Household. HER PARENTS FLED IRAN IN 1988, During the Iran-Iraq War. “They Felt Prejudice Coming from the Government,” She Says, “But They Never Felt Prejudice from Their Neighbors.”

As Bombs Fell On Iran in June, Lalezarzadeh Says Many Jewish Americans of Her Paarents’ Generation Hoped for Regime Change, Even As They Grieved Seing the LandsCapes of Youth. “They Don’t Want Innocent People to Get Hurt,“ She Says. “They Don’t Want Their Childhood Neighborhoods to Get Bombed.”

She Says Gaza Revealed a “Cleavage of Ideology” Between Her Persian Jewish Community-Rooted in Trauma from Religious PerseCtion-and Her Artistic, Non-Jewish Midade Easter.

“There’s A Lack of Acknowledgment of the Power Imbalance and of Having Compassion for the Magnitude of Suffering, Death and Starration in Gaza” in some Jewish Spaces, She Says. “But Also, These Persian Jews Have Left Iran. They’re Being Informed by Their Own Trauma.” She is also probled by “casual prejudice” Town israelis. “There’s A Conflation Between the israeli Government and Israeli People,“ She Says. “Their Beliefs Are Also Shaped by Trauma.”

Her Family Story Has Inspired Her Offstage Work, Too. In In the Garden of TulipsA 2023 Short Film She Wrote, Lalezarzade Dramatized Her Mother’s Escape from Iran at Age 15.

Nazanin Nour, 25, An Iranian American Actress, Comedian, Writer, Podcaster and Activist, Hosts MehmooniA podcast SpotLighting Iranian Voices. She Laments that Hollywood and the Media ofnten Misrepresent Iran – and that Iranians of the Mselves Remain Largely Invisible on American Screens.

EVEN WHEN She MAKES IT INTO the ROOM, she’S been told she doesn’n “look iranianoeough.” She asks, “Who Are You to Tell Me That I Don’t Look Iranian?”

Like Many in Her Generation, She Hungers to Create Work That Highlights Acts of Defance and Resistance IRAN IRAN. In Her Latest Project, She Is Production A Feature-Leggth Version of the Short Film Forbidden to See US Scream in TehranDirected by Iranian Filmmacher Farbod Ardebili, Who Follows a Punk Band Led by A Female Singer Det -Country’s Ban on Women Performing Solo.

“IT’s Showing The Resilience and Beauty of the People Inside Iran,“ She Says, “and How they Fight Back Against the Regime Through Art.”

Actor and Activist Nazanin Boniadi Helped Reshape the Portrayal of Iranian American Following 9/11. Her Parents Fled Iran for London in 1980, WHEN She WAS JUST Weeks Old, Feering Her Father Was on An Execution List.

She FIRST BROKE THROUGH ON Homeland As Fara Sherazi, An Intelligent and Strong-Wildled American Cia Analyst. Wearing A Hijab, Sherazi Grapples with Her Muslim and American Identities While Confronting Islamic Terrorism, Never Lozing Her Moral Compass.

Boniadi Laments that Many in the West Fail to Grasp That Mist Iranians Reject the islamic Republic. She Also Criticizes Protesters Waving the Regime’s Flag to OpPose Israel: “If You Want To Oppos War, Do Not Raise The Flag of Our Oppressors.”

She Worries that News Depicting Iran as A Dangerous Enemy Could Distort The Portrayal of Iranians in Hollywood Storylines.

While Her Fara Character Was A Breakthrogh, She Says The Headscarf Underscored How How How Hollywood Sometimes Falls Back on Facial Cultural Markers. As the Daughter of Exales Who Desiles the Regime, she felt the Character would have been been more realistic as a secular woman. In Iran, She Notes, The Hijab Holds Symbolic Weight As An Emblem of the State’s Control Over Women’s Bodies.

“I’m so blessed to have played that role,” Boniadi Says, adding that at that time, it “was Really Ground brundbreaking to have a muslim Woman Portrayed in that Way.” Still, she pushed back, unsuccessful, against the hijab.

She cells for more nuance in Hollywood’s Portrayal of Middle Eastern Characters. “I THINK IT’STHING THAT Wuld be questioned now, and Frankly, I would probably resist more than needing on a role that isn’n an Honest Department of the Iranian People.”

THESE Days, However, Boniadi Relishes Simply Playing A Character Not Defined by Her ethnicity. In Amazon’s Epic The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, She Portrays Bronwyn, A Village Healer and Single Mother – No Accent, No Hijab, No Middle Eastern Identity.

More Broadly, Iranian American Artists Yearn for a Future WHEN IRAN ISN’T AUTOMATICALLY CONFLATED IN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE WITH TheOCRACY, MILITANCY AND RADICALISM.

“They Always Show Us Bloowing Things Up,” Jobrani Says. “Just Once, I Want to See A SHOW WHERE MOHAMMED IN IRAN IS BAKING CONCOKES.”

This story appeared in the july 23 Issue of the Hollywood Reporter Magazine. Click Here to Subscribe.