Iranian film star Golshifteh Farahani is to make her European stage debut in May playing the tragic heroine Anna Karenina in Paris.
The 32 year old, who gained international fame with a role in Asghar Farhadi’s modern classic All About Ely, was the first top Iranian actor to star in a Hollywood film, raising eyebrows in her homeland when she appeared in Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies in 2008.
Authorities later forced her into exile in France and in 2012 she caused further controversy by posing nude for the cover of art magazine Egoiste in an act of feminist defiance of Iran’s religious leaders.
“Paris is the only place on the planet where women are not made feel guilty all the time,” she told the magazine. “[Back home] you are guilty as soon as you feel your first sexual feelings, even before you reach adolescence.”
Farahani — daughter of the acclaimed Iranian director Behzad Farahani — will play Karenina at the Theatre de la Tempete in an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s novel written and directed by Gaetan Vassart.
She is starring in the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film alongside Johnny Depp; next year’s release Rosewater, the directorial debut of former Daily Show host Jon Stewart.
That film tells the story of Canadian-Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari, who was locked up in Tehran after reporting on violence against protesters during the country’s presidential election in 2009.
