Tahar Rahim is a French actor of Algerian descent. He is known for his roles in the French film The Prophet (2009) and the British-American film The Mauritanian (2021).
Wiki/Biography
Tahar Rahim was born in Belfort, Burgundy-Franche-Comté, France on Saturday, July 4, 1981 (40 years old in 2021). His zodiac sign is Cancer.
Tahar Rahim’s childhood
He received his bachelor’s degree from the Lycée Belfort-Condorcet (also known as the Belfort-Condorcet Technical High School). In 2000, he entered a sports college in Strasbourg to study swimming, but after a year of getting bored, he dropped out. He then entered a university in Marseille to study computer science, but dropped out after two months. He then decided to pursue his love of acting and began studying film at the Paul Valery University in Montpellier, France. In 2005, he moved to Paris to study drama at the Helene Zidi Actors Laboratory. In the meantime, to make ends meet, he worked in a factory during the week and in a Parisian nightclub on the weekends.
appearance
Height (approximate): 5′ 8″
Eye Color: Brown
Hair color: Black
Family and Race
He comes from an immigrant family in Oran, Algeria.
Parents and siblings
His father was a teacher in Algeria, and after the family moved to France, his father became a worker. He has nine brothers and sisters. One of his brothers is named Ahmed Rahim.
Wife and children
He is married to French-Algerian actress Leïla Bekhti, whom he met on the set of The Prophet. They have a son, Souleymane (born July 2017), and a daughter (born February 2020).
Tahar Rahim and his wife
Profession
Movie
In September 2006, Takhar made his screen debut in the American film “The 9/11 Commission Report”, in which he played a “Taliban interrogator”.
In 2007, he made his French film debut in the horror film Inside, playing “a policeman”.
In 2009, he got his breakthrough role as the lead character “Malik El Jebena” in the French prison crime drama “The Prophet”.
He then played leading roles in the French films Free Man (2011), The Informer (2013), The Anarchist (2015), The Price of Success (2017), and Treat Me Like Fire (2018). In 2011, he starred in the American-British historical drama film Eagle, in which he played the lead role of the “Prince of the Seal Man”.
Tahar Rahim in The Eagle (2011)
In the same year, he played the leading role “Matthew” in the Sino-French co-production film “Love and Scars”.
He has starred in several Franco-Belgian co-productions such as Our Children (2012), Santa Claus (2014), Daguerre Edition (also a Japanese film; 2016), and Cure for Life (2016). In addition to this, he has starred in several international co-productions such as The Past (2013), The Wound (2014), Mary Magdalene (2018), and The Kindness of Strangers (2019). In 2021, he starred in the American-British legal film The Mauritanian, playing the role of “Mohamedou Ould Slahi”, a US government prisoner who was held for 14 years in the Guantánamo Bay detention camp without charge or trial. He was appreciated for his portrayal of the real-life character. In an interview, speaking about his preparation for the role, he said,
It was tough. I did my homework, read his books, listened to audios about him, watched videos to understand his psychology, but at a certain point, there are things you can’t know without experiencing them, so in order to get to those dark places, I needed some realistic conditions to experience it firsthand. My job was to make it bigger, to amplify it, for example, I wanted the team to shackle me with real shackles instead of fake ones, so that I could feel what Mohamedou had been through. The bruises on my body, I kept them for weeks, and I was only in shackles for two days. For the torture scenes, one of the things they would do is throw the detainees into a very cold cell, so I had the team make the cell as cold as possible and spray me with water so that I could feel the real situation firsthand, I was waterboarded for real, and we had a sign just in case. I also went on a strict diet, I lost 10-12 kg in three weeks. ”
TV drama
In 2007, he made his television screen debut in the French television series La Commune, playing the role of “Yazid Fikry”.
Tahir Rahim’s La Commune (2007)
He then starred in the French TV series Bref. (2012). In 2016, he played the lead role “Khalil Rachedi” in the French-British TV series The Last Panther.
He made his American television debut in “Tower” (2018) as “Ali Soufan”.
Tahar Rahim in The Tower (2018)
In 2021, he starred in the British TV series Snakes, which was co-produced by BBC One and Netflix. In the series, he played the lead role of Charles Sobhraj aka Snake. Talking about his attraction to play Charles Sobhraj in Snakes, Tahar said that he had read the book The Life and Times of Charles Sobhraj, written by Richard Neville and Julie Clarke, which he came across when he was fourteen years old. Every time he read the book, he felt like it was a movie and wanted to play the role. He added,
Around 2001, William Friedkin and Benicio del Toro were working on a movie about him, so I forgot about it, and then 20 years later I got an email saying yes, you got that offer, so it was a little different. But with him aside, the normally unimaginable fascination and repulsion automatically became an attraction to try to challenge yourself.”
Religion/Religious Views
He is a Muslim.
Awards and Achievements
- In 2009, he won the European Film Award for Best Actor for “A Prophet”
Tahar Rahim wins European Film Award
- 2010 Lumiere Awards for Best Actor (The Prophet)
- In 2010, he won the Crystal Globe Award for Best Actor for his role in “A Prophet”
- In 2010, he won the César Award for Best Actor and Most Promising Actor for his role in “A Prophet”
Tahar Rahim wins César Award
- In 2010, he won the Dublin Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for his role in A Prophet.
- 2010 Patrick Dewaere Award
Tahar Rahim receives Patrick Dewaer Award
- In 2010, he won the French Golden Star Award for Best Male Newcomer (Révélation masculin) for his role in The Prophet.
- 2011 CinEuphoria Best Actor Award – International Competition for The Prophet
- Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters 2017
Favorite Things
- Food: Algerian Kefta, Roga, Harsha, Kahel, Taham, Felfela
- Movies: Scarecrow (1973), The Line (1981), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), Narcos series, The Exorcist series, Oldboy (2003), Memories of Murder (2003)
- TV series: The Sopranos (1999), The Wire (2002), Breaking Bad (2008), Peaky Blinders (2013), Mindhunter (2017), Chernobyl (2019)
- American filmmakers: Jerry Schatzberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, Paul Thomas Anderson, James Gray, Courtney Hunt, Gaspard Noe, Ken Loach, Wim Wenders, Nicolas Winding Refn, William Friedkin
- French filmmakers: Julien Duvivier, Marcel Carné, Jean Grémillon
- Mexican filmmaker: Alejandro González Iñárritu
- Starring: Robert De Niro, Xavier Bova, Paul Meurisse, Lino Ventura, Mark Strong
- Singers: Umm Kulthum, Edith Piaf, Shekha Rimeti
- Songs: “Do You Wanna Funk” by Patrick Cowley and Sylvester, “Dear Mama” by Tupac Shakur
- Bands: Daft Punk, Queen
- Travel destinations: India, Thailand
Facts/Trivia
- He loves to travel in his spare time. As a teenager, he even decided that if he wasn’t an actor, he would travel around the world to find another career for himself. Speaking about traveling in an interview, he said,
I love traveling because I really like other cultures. I think traveling enriches you internally—it nourishes your personality. It’s always good to discover new people, new cultures, new music, new movies.”
- As a teenager, he loved to draw, and he drew well. He was a fan of Japanese animation and would draw his favorite heroes. Later, he began to sell his drawings. He gave up drawing when he was about 16 years old, and he started drawing again during the coronavirus pandemic in France. In an interview, he talked about this and said,
I feel good. It’s another way to escape reality, like watching a movie. I love drawing with my three-year-old son, so we draw together. I needed an activity to keep myself busy, so I started teaching him to draw. My son loves comic book characters, so I draw him, but I like to draw faces. I can’t draw from memory, so when I’m alone I’ll take a picture of a friend or family member—a face I like—and draw it. It feels good to do, especially in moments like this.”
- As a teenager, he was fascinated by movies and how they worked. As a teenager, he would go to the theater four times a week and watch three movies in a row until he had a headache.
Tahar Rahim as a teenager
- In October 2005, the French documentary “Tahar l’etudiant” by Cyril Mennegun was released, which chronicled Tahar’s journey as a student at Paul Valery University.
- Tahar has also acted in theatre. In 2007-2008, he played the blind character “Benjamin” in the play “Libres sont les papillons” at the Côté Court Theatre in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, directed by Hélène Zidi-Céruy and written by Leonard Gershe.
- He was selected as a member of the jury for the Un Certain Regard section of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
- He has appeared on the covers of magazines such as Glass, Paris Match, Flaunt, British GQ, Apollo, Vanity Fair, Le Parisien and Vogue.
Tahar Rahim on the cover of Paris Match magazine
- In an interview, he said that if he had the chance to play a Middle Eastern hero, he would play “Emir Abdelkader” – an Algerian religious and military leader who led the struggle against French colonial invasion in the mid-19th century.
- Tahar likes to smoke and drink coffee on the terrace every morning.
- He loves learning and mastering new languages. Besides French, he also knows English, Arabic and Spanish.
- Tahar is a sports fan and as a teenager he participated in sports such as football, boxing and swimming.
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education