Waleed Zuaiter

Waleed F. Zuaiter (Arabic: وليد زعيتر; born January 16, 1971) is an Arab-American actor and producer who has performed in on-stage productions in Washington, D.C.; Berkeley, California; and New York City, as well as several film and television productions. He lives in Los Angeles, California. He is the producer and co-star of Omar (2013), which was nominated for an Oscar at the 86th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.^[1]

Waleed Zuaiter
وليد زعيتر
Born	(1971-01-19) January 19, 1971 (age 53) Sacramento, California, U.S.
Alma mater	George Washington University
Occupation(s)	Actor, producer

Early life and education

Zuaiter, an American with Palestinian ancestry, born in 1971 in Sacramento, California, but grew up in Kuwait. He returned to the United States to earn his degree in philosophy and theatre at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C..

Career

Zuaiter began his acting career with several productions in Washington, before relocating to New York City.

On the New York stage, he received critical acclaim for his portrayal of a former Iraqi translator for the U.S. military, in George Packer's Betrayed. He also has starred in David Greig's The American Pilot at the Manhattan Theatre Club, Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul, Ilan Hatsor's Masked, Eliam Kraiem's Sixteen Wounded, and Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo's Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom. He also performed alongside Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline in Mother Courage at the Public Theater.

Zuaiter is also the producer of the annual New York Arab-American Comedy Festival and a member of the Arab-American theater collective NIBRAS.

Zuaiter's film and television productions include the HBO/BBC miniseries House of Saddam, Sex and the City 2 and The Men Who Stare at Goats, in which he played the role of Mahmud Daash. Recently, he completed filming the suspense-thriller Elevator, directed by Stig Svendsen, in which he plays a man trapped in a Wall Street elevator with several people, one of whom has a bomb.

Most recently Waleed produced and starred in Omar, a gripping thriller written and directed by Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now). The film was selected as the Palestinian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards,^[2] and was nominated for an Academy Award.^[3] It also won Best Feature Film at the 2013 Asian Pacific Screen Awards.^[4]

He also was featured in an NBC Universal Pilot written by Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson and directed by Spike Lee, starring Bobby Cannavale. Alongside Bobby Cannavale, Waleed's son, Laith Zuaiter, was featured in the pilot. Waleed Zuaiter starred in London Has Fallen as Kamran Barkawi, Aamir Barkawi's son and henchman and second in command of a terrorist strike.

He starred as the recurring character Samir Abboud in the Netflix adaptation of the novel Altered Carbon. Zuaiter starred in Billionaire Boys Club as The Persian, Hedayat Eslaminia and Izzy’s Father.^[5] In 2019, Waleed Zuaiter starred in Netflix limited series The Spy, as the Syrian Colonel Amin al-Hafiz.^[6]

In 2020, he played the role of a former Iraqi police officer collaborating with US forces while trying to find his missing daughter in the series Baghdad Central.^[7] The role earned him a leading actor nomination in the 2021 British Academy Television Awards.^[8]

In 2021, he starred as Hassan Asfour, senior Palestinian Liberation Organization negotiator, in the HBO film Oslo about the negotiations that led to the Oslo I Accord.^[9]

As of October 2022, Zuaiter is co-starring as Koba, a Georgian assassin and crime boss, in the second season of Gangs of London, a London crime drama series airing on Sky Atlantic in the UK and Germany, and on AMC in the US.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2000	Eat Me!	Barry
2003	Justice	Saeed
2004	Jihad!	Salaam
2007	The Visitor	Omar
2009	Veronika Decides to Die	Lecturer
2009	The Men Who Stare at Goats	Mahmud Daash
2010	Sex and the City 2	Shahib
2011	Elevator	Mohammed
2012	The United	Waleed Zaki
2013	Omar	Agent Rami	Also producer
2015	Parisienne	L'oncle Simon
2016	The Free World	Khalil
2016	London Has Fallen	Kamran Barkawi
2016	Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero	Malek
2016	Namour	Nabil
2016	20th Century Women	Charlie
2018	Here and Now	Sami
2018	Billionaire Boys Club	The Persian / Izzy's Dad
2018	The Angel	Gamal Abdel Nasser
2018	Saint Judy	Omar
2019	William	Dr. Julian Reed
2021	Amira	Said

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2002, 2008	Rani Khan / Khalid	Rani Khan / Khalid	2 episodes
2007	Numbers	Ali Karimi	Episode: "Robin Hood"
2007	The Unit	Man with Red Envelope	Episode: "M.P.s"
2007	M.O.N.Y.	Achmil Durrani	Television film
2008	House of Saddam	Adnan Hamdani	Episode #1.1
2009	Lie to Me	Deputy Ambassador Rafid	Episode: "The Best Policy"
2010	NCIS: Los Angeles	Thierry / Sheik	Episode: "Black Widow"
2010	Blue Bloods	Adam Hassan	Episode: "What You See"
2011	Homeland	Afsal Hamid	Episode: "Blind Spot"
2011	The Good Wife	Danny Marwat	Episode: "Executive Order 13224"
2011	Lost and Found	Raj	Television film
2012	Political Animals	Ambassador Serkan	Episode: "Second Time Around"
2012	Common Law	Aram Parisian	Episode: "Hot for Teacher"
2013–2014	Revolution	Martin Shaw	4 episodes
2014	Legends	Faris Nader	Episode: "Iconoclast"
2014	The Blacklist	Dr. Daniel Rivera	Episode: "The Scimitar (No. 22)"
2015	House of Cards	Kaseem Mahmoud	Episode: "Chapter 30"
2015	Masters of Sex	Mohammad aka Shah of Iran	Episode: "Three's a Crowd"
2016	Madam Secretary	Prime Minister Khoosat	2 episodes
2016	Good Behavior	Chase Rochefort
2017	Chicago Justice	Amir Nasiri	Episode: "See Something"
2017	Prison Break	Mohammad El Tunis	2 episodes
2018	Altered Carbon	Samir Abboud	6 episodes
2018	Colony	Vincent	4 episodes
2019	The Spy	Colonel Amin al-Hafiz	5 episodes
2020	Baghdad Central	Muhsin Kadr al-Khafaji	6 episodes
2020	Ramy	Yassir	Episode: "Uncle Naseem"
2021	Oslo	Hassan Asfour	Television film
2022	Gangs of London	Koba	6 episodes

References

1. "Oscar Winners 2015: The Complete List - 86th Academy Awards". Oscar.com. Archived from the original on 2014-06-27. Retrieved 2014-05-09.
2. "Foreign Language Oscar: Israel Submits 'Bethlehem'; Palestine Goes With 'Omar'". Deadline Hollywood. 29 September 2013. Archived from the original on 2013-09-29. Retrieved 2013-09-30.
3. "Oscars: Main nominations 2014". BBC News. 16 January 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-01-16. Retrieved 2014-01-16.
4. "Asia Pacific Screen Awards Announced in Australia". Australia Network News. 13 December 2013. Archived from the original on 2020-10-28. Retrieved 2014-04-10.
5. Katherine Bishop (January 6, 1988). "Murder Trial in Bungled Extortion Case Enters Final Stages". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 6, 2018. Retrieved August 18, 2018.
6. "The Spy" Archived 2019-09-30 at the Wayback Machine at Rotten Tomatoes.
7. Ellen E. Jones, "Baghdad Central review – more than just a Middle East Morse" Archived 2020-04-05 at the Wayback Machine. The Guardian, 3 February 2020.
8. "BAFTA TV 2021: The Winners and Nominations for the Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards and British Academy Television Craft Awards". BAFTA. 24 May 2021. Archived from the original on 7 June 2021. Retrieved 14 July 2021.
9. "Oslo (2021)" Archived 2021-06-03 at the Wayback Machine at Rotten Tomatoes

External links

• Arab American News
• Profile of Waleed Zuaiter in The National
• Profile of Waleed Zuaiter at the Institute for Middle East Understanding
• New York Times review of the play Abandoned
• Article about Waleed Zuaiter in TalkMoviesWorld.com
• Waleed Zuaiter at IMDb