Actor you Love to Hate on New Villainous Role - Faran Tahir

Moving onto his next victims, Hollywood’s favorite villain Faran Tahir (IRON MAN, STAR TREK) will be terrorizing the people of Earth this summer in the highly anticipated blockbuster ELYSIUM (Premieres August 9th, TriStar Pictures/Sony) as ‘Minister Patel,’ the recently elected leader of the pristine man-made space station Elysium, populated by 8,000 super-high-net-worth citizens who fled the overpopulated and ruined planet Earth rife with crime & poverty, and along with Defense Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) will do whatever it takes to keep the “illegals” away from disrupting their perfect oasis, which is threatened when ‘Max’ (Matt Damon) attempts to bring equality to the world. No stranger to Hollywood mega-blockbusters, the award winning, Harvard trained actor’s career includes significant roles in IRON MAN and “Dallas,” and he can also be seen terrorizing his fellow characters in countless guest starring roles, including “Lost,” “NYPD Blue,” “Cold Case,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The West Wing,” to name a few.

Tony Stark’s primary antagonist in IRON MAN, Faran starred opposite Robert Downey, Jr., as ‘Raza,’ the leader of the Ten Rings terrorist group who orchestrated the attack on Tony Stark following the unveiling of his new defense missile in Afghanistan, which led to the necessity for the electromagnet grafted into Stark’s chest to keep the shrapnel shell shards that wounded from from reaching his heart and killing him.

Faran’s versatile acting talent also landed him roles in J.J. Abrams’s STAR TREK, where he played the first Federation Captain of middle-eastern ethnicity in the history of the franchise—truly a groundbreaking role. His additional film credits range from roles in films such as Jennifer Aniston’s comedy PICTURE PERFECT, to dramatic roles in films such as CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR with Tom Hanks and A PRICE ABOVE RUBIES with Renée Zellweger.

Faran comes from a theatre family well-known in Pakistan and India where both his parents are actors/directors/writers in Pakistan. He completed his B.A. from University of California, Berkeley and his graduate degree from the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard.

ELYSIUM isn’t the only blockbuster on the horizon for Faran. In theatres on October 18th, Faran stars as ‘Javed’ in ESCAPE PLAN, where he joins Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in combining their skills to try to break out of an ultimate high-tech prison that Stallone’s character himself designed to be escape-proof. Not only do the 3 men face the challenge of breaking out of the escape-proof prison, but together they face the challenge of battling the ruthless ‘warden Hobbs’ (Jim Caviezel) and his corrupt guard (Vinnie Jones).