- Omid Djalili
-
Omid Djalili 
Djalili at the 2010 Tribeca Film FestivalBorn 30 September 1965
Chelsea, London, England, United KingdomMedium Film, television, stand-up Spouse Annabel Knight (m. ?-present) Omid Djalili (
/əˈmiːd dʒəˈlɪli/; Persian: امید جلیلی; born 30 September 1965)[1] is a British Iranian stand-up comedian, actor, television producer and writer.Contents
Personal life
Djalili was born in Chelsea, London to Iranian Bahá'í parents and is a Bahá'í himself.[2][3] He attended Holland Park School and then the University of Ulster in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, studying English and Theatre studies.[4]
Djalili is a Chelsea fan.[5] He is married to British actress and playwright Annabel Knight, with whom he has a daughter and two sons.[6][7]
Comedy career
Djalili performing at the Arts Depot in 2007
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" in 1996.
He has performed in numerous countries, including Australia, Ireland, Denmark, Canada, Germany and the United States, where he had his own HBO Special and did 22 episodes of the NBC sitcom Whoopi with Whoopi Goldberg.
He did his part 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. The same year he broke Edinburgh Festival box office records with over 16,500 ticket sales.
In 2006, Sky Television picked him to be the face of their Saturday night movie 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.
On 18 March 2007, he was voted by the British public as the 60th best stand-up comedian in a Channel 4 programme "The 100 Greatest Stand-Ups". On 26 October 2007, he guest-presented the BBC political quiz show Have I Got News for You.[citation needed] The Omid Djalili Show started on BBC1 on 17 November 2007. The series is a mix of sketches and stand-up material. A second series was recorded in late 2008 and began broadcast on BBC1 on 20 April 2009. He performed on We Are Most Amused on ITV1 to mark Prince Charles's 60th birthday in 2008.
A touring stand-up, his next tour starts on 14th October 2011 although previews of this tour are being performed in smaller venues such as The Beggar's Theatre Millom
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, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Sex and the City 2 and provides his voice in Over the Hedge.
He had 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". He is known to American audiences as Nasim from 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, Cameron Macintosh (producer) announced that Djalili will 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 was contracted until 18 July 2009.[8]
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 movie The Infidel.
In 2010, Djalili starred in a series of TV and cinema adverts for Moneysupermarket.com.[9]
Djalili appeared in the short-lived NBC sitcom The Paul Reiser Show, which was a midseason replacement for the 2010-11 television season.[10]
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!"[11]
Other activities
On 13 June 2010, Djalili appeared in a Meltdown Festival concert[12] 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.
Filmography
Cinema
- The Mummy (1999)
- Notting Hill (1999)
- Mad Cows (1999)
- The World Is Not Enough (1999)
- Gladiator (2000)
- Spy Game (2001)
- Mean Machine (2001)
- Anita and Me (2002)
- Cross My Heart (2003)
- Deadlines (2004)
- The Calcium Kid (2004)
- Modigliani (2004)
- Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
- Casanova (2005)
- Alien Autopsy (2006)
- Over the Hedge as Tiger, the bad tempered Persian cat (2006)
- Grow Your Own (2007)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
- The Love Guru (2008)
- Dead Man Running (2009)
- The Infidel (2010)
- Sex and the City 2 (2010)
- Animals United (2010)
- Mr Nice (2010)
Television
- The Friday Night Armistice (1996)
- The Bill (1998)
- Barking (TV series) (1998)
- The Lake of Darkness (1999)
- Cleopatra (1999)
- Coming Soon (1999)
- Small Potatoes (1999)
- Black Books (2000)
- Jason and the Argonauts (2000)
- Lenny Henry in Pieces (2000)
- So What Now? (2001)
- Relic Hunter (2002)
- Dinotopia: The Series (2002)
- Between Iraq and a Hard Place (2003)
- Whoopi (2003)
- Live at the Apollo (2004)
- Age of Awakening. Narrator (2005)
- Chopra Town (2005)
- One Night Stand (HBO) (2005)
- My Family and Other Animals (2005)
- Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive (2006)
- Jack Dee's Lead Balloon (2006)
- Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (2006)
- TV Heaven, Telly Hell (2007)
- Have I Got News For You (2007)
- The Omid Djalili Show (2007)
- Premier League All Stars (2007)
- Never Mind The Buzzcocks (2008)
- The Omid Djalili Show - Series 2 (2009)
- Would I Lie To You? (2009)
- The Paul Reiser Show (2010)
Video games
- Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony as Yusuf Amir.[13] (2009)
- 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand as Eddie.[14] (2009)
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.
Stand-up DVDs
- No Agenda: Live at the London Palladium (26 November 2007) - Live at the London Palladium
- Live in London (16 November 2009) - Live at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo
See also
References
- ^ Omid Djalili profile IMDb
- ^ Omid Djalili: Everybody's fool The Independent, 12 February 2006
- ^ In The Arena With Omid Djalili By Darius Kadivar, Payvand's Iran News, 3 December 2007
- ^ TV Heaven, Telly Hell - Omid Djalili
- ^ Fenners meets Omid Djalili, ESPN (UK), 19 April 2010
- ^ Black, Claire (10 March 2008). "A mixed gag - Omid Djalili interview". The Scotsman. http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/features/A-mixed-gag--Omid.3859291.jp. Retrieved 12 March 2011.
- ^ Goss, Alexandra (28 February 2010). "Fame & Fortune: Omid Djalili". The Sunday Times. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/consumer_affairs/article7043621.ece. Retrieved 12 March 2011.
- ^ "Omid Djalili pockets Fagin role in Oliver!", The Guardian article, 11 February 2009
- ^ ""Omid Djalili Money Supermarket adverts on YouTube"". Youtube.com. http://www.youtube.com/results?aq=f&search_query=moneysupermarketvids+omid+djalili&gl=US. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
- ^ "NBC Unveils 2010-11 Primetime Schedule Accented by Five New Comedies, Seven New Dramas and New Alternative Program". The Futon Critic. May 16, 2010. http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news/2010/05/16/nbc-unveils-2010-2011-primetime-schedule/20100516nbc01/. Retrieved May 31, 2010.
- ^ "Schools - Teachers - Off By Heart Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet "Hang thee, young baggage, disobedient wretch!"". BBC. 2011-03-21. http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers/offbyheart/speeches/romeo_juliet_hang_thee.shtml. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
- ^ http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/music/classical/tickets/philharmonia-orchestra-hovhaness-53197
- ^ "GRAND THEFT AUTO IV - Xbox World 360 Preview (News)". Gta4.net. 2009-09-07. http://www.gta4.net/news/4309/xbox-world-360-preview. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
- ^ "Features - 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand: Audio Postmortem". Gamasutra. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3992/50_cent_blood_on_the_sand_audio_.php?print=1. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
External links
Categories:- 1965 births
- Alumni of the University of Ulster
- British people of Iranian descent
- Edinburgh Comedy Festival
- English Bahá'ís
- English film actors
- English stand-up comedians
- English television actors
- English voice actors
- Living people
- People from Chelsea, London
- 20th-century Bahá'ís
- 21st-century Bahá'ís
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