Keslassy, Elsa (17 May 2023). "Playtime Boards Buzzy Biopic 'Monsieur Aznavour' Starring Tahar Rahim as Legendary Crooner (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety . Retrieved 4 June 2023.

I think when things like this are happening, that can feel far away or that are so awful, that it’s kind of hard to contemplate, we kind of protect ourselves by not thinking so much about these people, about them as specific individuals. And, I think what this movie does, and I imagine what you’re feeling was reading the script is you read this, and you feel Mohamedou is a person, you feel this really individual person going into it. So, when you’re going into it as an actor, how do you kind of work to establish that connection with the audience? In 2021, he was nominated for a Golden Globe for portraying the role of Mohamedou Ould Salahi in The Mauritanian. [13] Rahim also served as a jury member at the 74th Cannes Film Festival. He earned his baccalauréat from Lycée Condorcet, Belfort (also known as General And Technological High School Condorcet De Belfort). In 2000, he enrolled himself at a sports college in Strasbourg, with his specialization in swimming, but after suffering ennui for a year, he quit the course. Following this, he enrolled himself in a computer science course at a college in Marseille but dropped out in two months. He then decided to pursue his passion for acting and began studying film at the Paul Valéry University in Montpellier, France. [1] MensXP In 2005, he moved to Paris and studied drama at Laboratoire De L’acteur-Hélène Zidi. [2] Madame Le Figaro At the same time, to make his ends meet, he worked at a factory during the week and a nightclub at weekends in Paris. Physical Appearance Rather than being dragged along in the celebrity slipstream immediately after A Prophet, he took his time weighing up offers, eventually starring with Channing Tatum in The Eagle, set in the second century AD. It would be a stretch to imagine a part further from kingpin Malik than this Gaelic-speaking warrior daubed from Mohawk-to-toe in loam. “I’m always trying to go in a different direction,” he says with a mischievous smile. A lot of scripts I was sent had to do with terrorism. I didn’t want to be a tool for that sort of thing

Waterboarding, Starvation, and Great Acting: Tahar Rahim Could Be In the Oscar Race". IndieWire. 7 January 2021 . Retrieved 20 January 2021. Female Filmmakers Lead Nominees For London Critics' Circle Film Awards". Deadline. 12 January 2021 . Retrieved 20 January 2021. Steven, Beth (17 February 2011). "2011 ICS Award Winners". International Cinephile Society . Retrieved 5 April 2023. In addition to placing these men beyond the reach of US law, imprisoning them at Guantánamo placed them beyond the reach of the US imagination."

Tahar did his baccalauréat from Lycée Condorcet, Belfort (also known as General And Technological High School Condorcet De Belfort). In 2000, Tahar admitted himself to a sports college in Strasbourg, where he pursued his major in swimming. Soon, he found himself bored and quit the course after a year. The following year, he pursued a computer science course at a college in Marseille; he got bored again and dropped out in two months. Realizing his passion for acting, he began his film studies at the Paul Valéry University, Montpellier, France. [1] MensXP [2] Madame Le Figaro Physical Appearance British Academy Film Awards (2010)". British Academy of Film and Television Arts . Retrieved 5 April 2023. He is wary of expectations that he should be a role model for France's Maghrebi communities. "I don't get into all that. I'm not here to carry a flag and say I represent this or that. Other people do it really well. I'm an actor, full stop. Not an Arab actor. Not an actor of Algerian origin. Just an actor." I want people to know my side of the story [and] I feel humbled that it was made into a major motion picture," he says. "I don't have weapons, I don't have the police. I don't have drones to take out people but I have my words and I want to debate the negative exceptionalism [towards] the Arab world and Africa. We can't be kidnapped; we can't be tortured." He starred in various French-Belgian co-produced films like Our Children (2012), Le Père Noël (2014), Daguerrotype (also Japanese; 2016), and Heal the Living (2016). He also made appearances in several internationally co-produced films like The Past (2013), The Cut (2014), Mary Magdalene (2018), and The Kindness of Strangers (2019). In 2021, Tahar Rahim was cast in the lead role of ‘Mohamedou Ould Slahi’ in the American-British legal film ‘The Mauritanian.’ The film is based on the real-life person Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was captured by the US government without any charges, kept at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, and deprived of trial for fourteen years. Tahar was widely appreciated for his portrayal of Slahi. While talking about the preparation of the role in an interview, Tahar Rahim said,

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Rahim describes him as “a mix between Muhammad Ali and Nelson Mandela”. Even when he was at Guantánamo Bay, he befriended his captors, appealing to their better natures. Echoing Stewart in Camp X-Ray, one of Slahi’s guards, Steve Wood, remains a close friend; he even converted to Islam. He came to Mauritania to visit Slahi last year. The reunion is captured in the Guardian short film My Brother’s Keeper. Everything else, from his first encounter with American film to his method and the representation of other Franco-Arab actors, he kindly explains for us here. This is Tahar Rahim—in his own words. Tahar Rahim The latest is The Past, an intense Parisian drama by Asghar Farhadi, the Iranian director of A Separation, with Rahim as the third corner of an emotional triangle that also contains Bérénice Bejo, from The Artist. Rahim's character – Samir, a drycleaner with tragic family troubles – is a sullen, taciturn figure, the actor's restraint throughout bringing a stable centre to a film that's otherwise prone to hair-tearing histrionics. Samir resembles him the least of all his characters, Rahim tells me: "He doesn't move much – I can't stay still for a moment." Differently agonising was Our Children (2012), a superb but harrowing drama about a couple (he's Moroccan, she's Belgian) undergoing extreme meltdown brought on partly by cultural difference. Rahim rolls his eyes. "Phew! It was tough. But I keep a distance from my characters. I'm not one of those actors who becomes another person to make a film, and I'm not sure they exist anyway. I work in the moment – when I'm there I believe in it, and when I go home, I'm me."

Kroll, Justin (3 June 2022). " 'Madame Web': Tahar Rahim Latest To Join Sony Marvel Pic". Deadline . Retrieved 7 June 2022. Films such as The Past, he says, are "the kind I most like watching – the kind that make you think about the human condition. I like films to be pure cinema, but I also like them to provide a snapshot of a family, a society or a character – something that can nourish you as a human being as well as an actor." Nominations announced for the RTS Programme Awards 2022". Royal Television Society. 3 March 2022 . Retrieved 11 April 2023. This is The Looming Tower‘s moral center and its secret weapon, courtesy of a Franco-Algerian actor named Tahar Rahim. If you’ve spent time in an arthouse cinema, you have most assuredly seen this popular star before, in movies ranging from the Oscar-nominated French prison drama A Prophet(2009) to critically praised imports like The Past(2013). And if you haven’t, congratulations – you’ve just met your next Internet crush and the show’s big breakout star.

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Speaking of languages, I worked on my American accent for a long time. I had to do it for my first job over there, The Looming Tower. The character is from Lebanon, but he left for the States when he was fourteen, and I portray him in his late twenties. Even if there’s a slight accent now, I chose to force it in the American direction. On The Serpent, they asked me for a French accent—but I didn’t want to do a caricature, so I found an in-between that worked. But in [Ridley Scott’s] Napoleon, they requested a British voice. It’s strange, because in that film I’m playing a historical French figure [laughs]. In his leisure time, Tahar likes to travel. In his teens, he decided that he would travel the world to seek his profession if he failed to become an actor. In an interview, talking about traveling, he said, In 2018, he appeared as Judas in the film Mary Magdalene, written by Helen Edmundson. [12] In the U.S., he had a starring role as FBI agent Ali Soufan in The Looming Tower. Leïla Bekhti: Savoureusement métamorphosée en femme fatale..." (in French). Pure People. 8 June 2011 . Retrieved 9 June 2011. After earning a Baccalauréat at the Lycée Condorcet of Belfort, Rahim enrolled first in sports and then computer science programmes. After two subsequent years of boredom studying the subjects in Strasbourg and Marseille, Rahim decided to pursue his passion and began to study film at the Paul Valéry University of Montpellier. His life as a film student was chronicled in a documentary by fellow Belfortain Cyril Mennegun titled "Tahar, student", aired on French TV channel France 5 in 2006.

Although being in an exotic location had its perks (“Every weekend we could on an Island or something, so it was like a holiday,” he says), it did keep him isolated from his wife and two kids. “To be honest, I missed them every day,” the actor says, eventually developing a ritual that every other day, “I would talk to my kids and then go work out. It helped me let it out.” STXfilms The same year, he appeared in the French-Chinese film ‘Love and Bruises’ in the lead role of ‘Mathieu.’ His father was a teacher in Algeria and after his family shifted to France, his father became a worker. He has nine siblings. One of his brothers is named Ahmed Rahim. Wife & Children British Academy Film Awards (2021)". British Academy of Film and Television Arts . Retrieved 5 April 2023. Clarke, Donald (31 December 2010). "The Dublin Film Critics Circle waves goodbye to 2010". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 13 January 2011 . Retrieved 5 April 2023.Annual Awards (2014)". Chlotrudis Society for Independent Films. 16 March 2014 . Retrieved 5 April 2023. Rahim played Paul Barras in Ridley Scott's Napoleon, starring Joaquin Phoenix, in 2023 for Apple TV+. [14] He will appear in the Sony's Spider-Man Universe film Madame Web. [15] In 2023, Rahim was announced to be playing French-Armenian singer Charles Aznavour. [16] Personal life [ edit ] You just said it, it’s all about trust. I had the most beautiful safety net with Kevin, I could try whatever I wanted. I knew he would tell me, “Uh, that’s not good. Do it again. Let’s go to this direction, right, left, up, down.” And plus, he has a lot of experience with fictions and documentaries. And, as he did a lot of documentaries, he knows exactly what’s a genuine person, genuine expressions, real feeling, realism. And, I knew that each time I would try something, he would see if it’s right or wrong. Does he worry that it will feed Sobhraj’s considerable ego to see himself portrayed by a handsome, talented movie star? Rahim swivels sideways in his office chair so that he’s sitting in profile while he ponders the question. “Maybe he’ll say, ‘They’re all talking about me!’ Maybe he’ll think it’s bullshit. I don’t know.” Isn’t it ghoulish to tell his story at all? “It’s in our nature to want to find out about him,” he says. “The less you know, the more you’re attracted. Fascination and repulsion – a very human feeling.” French-Algerian actor Tahar Rahim to star in rom-com alongside Anne Hathaway". Arab News. 9 June 2021 . Retrieved 24 April 2023.