Iranian actress Nazanin Boniadi Images & Filmography

Desert Dancer and Ben-Hur 2016 actress Nazanin Boniadi is an Iranian-born British-American actress. She was born on 22 May 1980

Born in Tehran at the height of the Iranian Revolution, her parents relocated to London shortly thereafter. She performed violin and ballet as a young girl.

She attended a private high school and later moved to the United States where she earned a Bachelor's Degree, with Honors, in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Irvine. At UCI, she won the Chang Pin-Chun Undergraduate Research Award for molecular research involving cancer treatment and heart transplant rejection. She was also Assistant Editor-in-Chief of MedTimes, UCI's undergraduate medical newspaper.

Boniadi is fluent in English and Persian. In the mid 2000s she was a dedicated Scientologist. Her mother had also been a Scientologist. In 2005 she was commended for setting a record in selling scientology books. In 2004, she had a brief relationship with Tom Cruise. According to claims of the documentary Going Clear, her acquaintance with Cruise was not accidental and the Church of Scientology prepared and planted her for this role.The church also vetted her along with dozens of other women as a potential wife for Cruise, but she was not selected.

Boniadi later left the Church of Scientology and nowadays she defines herself as a "non-practising Muslim".