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Simon Abkarian
Born: 5th Mar 1962 Gonesse, Val d'Oise, France
Dept: Acting
Simon Abkarian (born 5 March 1962) is a French-Armenian actor.
Born in Gonesse, Val d'Oise, of Armenian descent, Abkarian spent his childhood in Lebanon. He moved to Los Angeles, where he joined an Armenian theater company managed by Gerald Papazian. He returned to France in 1985, settling in Paris. He took classes at the Acting International school, then he joined Ariane Mnouchkine's Théâtre du Soleil.
Abkarian left the Théâtre du Soleil in 1993 and played in 2001 "Beast on the Moon" by Richard Kalinoski, directed by Irina Brook, a play about the life of a survivor of the Genocide of the Armenians, a role which won him critical acclaims and the Molière of the best comedian.
His first roles in cinema were proposed by French filmaker Cédric Klapisch, who asked him to play in several of his movies, notably in "Chacun cherche son chat" ("When the Cat is Away" (1996) and in "Ni pour, ni contre (bien au contraire)" en 2003.
He was featured in Sally Potter's Yes (2004), in which he played the lead role.
Abkarian then played Mehdi Ben Barka in the thriller "J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka" by Serge Le Péron, about the kidnapping and the murder of the leader of the Moroccan opposition. He then played in "Prendre Femme" by Ronit Elkabetz which won him several interpretation prizes. Playing different roles and in different genres, he was featured in the adventure "Zaïna, cavalière de l'Atlas" by Bourlem Guerdjou, in the comedy "Le Démon de midi" by Marie-Pascale Osterriet. He has also appeared in Atom Egoyan's Ararat (2002), he was Albert in Almost Peaceful (2004) by French Director Michel Deville a film about Holocaust survivors, he was featured in "Your Dreams" (2005) by Denis Thybaud. He played the role of villain Alex Dimitrios in the James Bond film, Casino Royale. The character is a Government contractor and arms dealer working against Bond.
He was featured as Sahak in the thriller "Les Mauvais Joueurs" ("The Gamblers") (2007) by Frédéric Balekdjian. He has also been the voice of Ebi in the French version of the animated feature "Persepolis". Abkarian played the role of the eminent Armenian poet Missak Manouchianin in "Army of Crime" (2010) by Robert Guédiguian, a French filmaker based in Marseilles, who is also of Armenian parentage.
He has also played Dariush Bakhshi, the Iranian Special Consul, in the BBC drama Spooks MI-5.
Abkarian is known for his intensity in acting and for his ecclectism in the roles he choses.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Simon Abkarian, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia .
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Film and Tv Credits
Total number of credits listed: 96
Film: 85 (89%)
Television: 11 (11%)
Remaining genres not in graph: War, Action & Adventure, Family, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Horror, Music, War & Politics
Filmography
(No release date supplied. Possibly still in production.)
A lonely teenage girl joins a school for promising killers and trains hard to become an professional assassin as she uncovers the mysteries of her par ... view
Character:
The Father
Original title: Dieu reconnaîtra les siens
(No release date supplied. Possibly still in production.)
After a long journey through the circuit of international Islamism that took him from France to London via Bosnia, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Hamid ret ... view
Character:
Original title: La Bataille De Gaulle, film 2 : J'écris ton nom
2026
Part two of a two-part biopic following French army officer Charles De Gaulle's life and political commitment between 1940 and 1945, and trace his dev ... view
Character:
Charles De Gaulle
Original title: La Bataille De Gaulle, film 1 : L'âge de fer
2026
Part one of a two-part biopic following French army officer Charles De Gaulle's life and political commitment between 1940 and 1945, and trace his dev ... view
Character:
Charles De Gaulle
Feb 2026 (first aired)
When a romantic getaway to Paris takes a dark turn with the sudden disappearance of her boyfriend Tom aboard a train to the south of France, Alice is ... view
Character:
Gaspard Drax (4 ep.)
Original title: Le Quatrième Mur
2025
Lebanon, 1982. To keep a promise made to an old friend, Georges, an idealistic theater director, travels to Beirut for a project as utopian as it is r ... view
Character:
Marwan
2022
Captain Sara Bellaiche, from Toulouse Judiciary Police branch, is investigating a go-fast linked to the murder of two teenagers, an investigation led ... view
Character:
Daniel Prat
Oct 2022 (first aired)
As the Paris firefighters try to stop the flames from spreading in the Cathedral, the show also follows characters being put through the wringer - the ... view
Character:
Max (6 ep.)
Original title: Le Chemin du bonheur
2022
Saul escaped the coming Shoah as a child by being sent from Vienna to Brussels by a Kindertransport. Now in 1986, he is on the road to resilience and ... view
Character:
Saül Birnbaum
Original title: Sans répit
2022
After going to extremes to cover up an accident, a corrupt cop's life spirals out of control when he starts receiving threats from a mysterious witnes ... view
Character:
Antoine Marelli
Original title: Selon la police
2022
One morning, a worn-out field cop, nicknamed Ping-Pong by everyone, burns his police ID and disappears. During one night and one day, his colleagues l ... view
Character:
Tristan
Original title: Basse saison
2021
A seaside resort in the middle of winter, with its abandoned beach bars and rain-battered alleys, can easily flank the drone. Refugees on the top floo ... view
Character:
Anthony
2021
When his father passes away, a dentist in Paris inherits a plot and the will to build a house on it. The situation becomes tricky when he learns the p ... view
Character:
Müller
Original title: מחברות שחורות
2021
With this two-part feature documentary, Shlomi Elkabetz shares a poignant love letter to his sister, the late actress and director Ronit Elkabetz, and ... view
Character:
2021
Exclusively created with period engravings, this animated feature explores the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the ensuing Paris Commune revolution in ... view
Character:
Narrateur (voice)
May 2020 (first aired)
Jeremy, 33, is a lonely Parisian. He's never felt like he belonged anywhere. One night, he discovers The Wonderland, a club with live music run by a c ... view
Character:
Tony (6 ep.)
Original title: Das Vorspiel
2019
Anna teaches violin at a music school, her husband is an instrument-maker. They have a 10-year-old son, Jonas. At school, Anna champions young Alexand ... view
Character:
Philippe
Original title: Deux moi
2019
Rémy and Mélanie live next door to each other in Paris but have never met. The two thirty-year-old Parisians search for connections online, but neve ... view
Character:
Mansour
Original title: Les Hirondelles de Kaboul
2019
Summer 1998—Kabul under Taliban rule. Zunaira and Mohsen are young and in love. Despite the daily violence and misery, they hope for a better future ... view
Character:
Atiq (voice)
2019
On the night of November 13, 2015, a woman who lives behind the Bataclan and a man who happens to pass by help the injured as they flee the terrorists ... view
Character:
Karan
Original title: Rebelles
2019
Sandra, a young woman forced to leave the south of France to flee a violent husband. Without attachment, she returned to Boulogne-sur-Mer, the city of ... view
Character:
Simon Bénéké, Sandra's father
2018
After a gifted musician inherits a mansion after her long lost father dies under mysterious circumstances, she discovers his last musical masterpiece ... view
Character:
Charles Vernais
Original title: Edmond
2018
Paris, France, December 1897. The young playwright Edmond Rostand feels like a failure. Inspiration has abandoned him. Married and father of two child ... view
Character:
Ange Fleury
Original title: Djam
2017
Djam, a young Greek woman, is sent to Istanbul by her uncle Kakourgos, a former sailor with a passion for Rebetiko, to find a rare part that will repa ... view
Character:
Kakourgos
2017
Master car thieves square off against French gangsters in the South of France with money, women and lives all on the line. ... view
Character:
Jacomo Morier
Mar 2017 (first aired)
A lonely teenage girl joins a school for promising killers and trains hard to become an professional assassin as she uncovers the mysteries of her par ... view
Character:
The Father (10 ep.)
2017
Max and Minou are having a relationship crisis: she's crying, he's getting annoyed. Their car has been vandalised but this is not why she's crying. Wh ... view
Character:
Le patron du café
2016
The final part of a family trilogy by Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz. It follows Viviane Amsalem's grueling legal marathon to obtain a divorce. ... view
Character:
Self
Original title: La Mécanique de l'ombre
2016
Two years after a burn-out, Duval is still unemployed. Contacted by an enigmatic businessman, he is offered a simple and well-paid job: transcribing t ... view
Character:
Gerfaut
2016
Chouf: It means “look” in Arabic, but it is also the name of the watchmen in the drug cartels of Marseille. Sofiane is 20. A brilliant student, he ... view
Character:
Le libanais
Nov 2015 (first aired)
Malaterra: for the residents this village is a haven of peace, a refuge. Until the death of a child. This once united community, where everyone though ... view
Character:
Thomas Rotman (8 ep.)
Original title: Une histoire de fou
2015
Aram, a young man from Marseille of Armenian origin, blows up the Turkish ambassador's car in Paris. Gilles, a young cyclist who was passing at that p ... view
Character:
Hovannès Alexandrian
Original title: La vengeance des Arméniens, Le procès Tehlirian
2015
On 15 March 1921, Talat Pasha, a high-ranking Turkish dignitary, was shot dead in a Berlin street by a young Armenian. A few months later, Soghomon Te ... view
Character:
Narrator
2015
Exactly 100 years after the Armenian Genocide, a theatre director stages a play to bring the ghosts of the past back to life. ... view
Character:
Simon
2014
In 1915 a man survives the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, but loses his family, speech and faith. One night he learns that his twin daughter ... view
Character:
Krikor
2014
Vincent Miles, a gunsmith and shooting instructor at the National Police, is an expert in combat shooting who stubbornly refuses to join a field briga ... view
Character:
Commander Luc Denard
Original title: גט: המשפט של ויויאן אמסלם
2014
The trial story of Viviane Amsalem's five year fight to obtain her divorce in front of the only legal authority competent for divorce cases in Israel, ... view
Character:
Elisha
2013
The incredible destiny of Angélique: a beautiful girl who found in her love for Joffrey Peyrac the strength to fight injustice and submission in a ce ... view
Character:
L'avocat François Desgrez
Original title: La Marche
2013
In 1983, in France experiencing intolerance and racial violence , three young teens and the priest Minguettes launching a largely peaceful march for e ... view
Character:
Le père de Farid
Character:
Abraham Drucker
Feb 2012 (first aired)
Kaboul Kitchen is a French comedy television series broadcast by Canal+. It was created by Marc Victor, Allan Mauduit and Jean-Patrick Benes. The seri ... view
Character:
Colonel Amanullah (36 ep.)
2012
Inspired by the true story of the first giraffe to visit France, Zarafa is a sumptuously animated and stirring adventure, and a throwback to a bygone ... view
Character:
Hassan (voice)
Original title: De force
2011
Following a series of unsolved robberies, the authorities decide to give carte blanche to commander Clara Damico to neutralize a particularly organize ... view
Character:
Jimi Weiss
2011
Stan Mirkine would have everything to be happy. Now, he is sure of it: his wife is cheating on him. Too much in love, possessive to the extreme, he is ... view
Character:
Milo Garavan
Mar 2011 (first aired)
Tony Roucas, a long-term convicted criminal, escapes from prison with Kenz, a small-town big shot. Their run reveals a generational conflict of a new ... view
Character:
Tony Roucas (8 ep.)
Original title: Tête de Turc
2010
A 14 year old boy, an ER doctor, a cop looking for revenge, a mother fighting for her children and a man distraught by the death of his wife see their ... view
Character:
Le veuf
2009
A schoolboy uses his cellphone camera to shoot intimate interviews with people working at a New York fashion house and secretly posts them on the inte ... view
Character:
Merlin
Original title: L'Armée du crime
2009
This gripping historical drama recounts the story of Armenian-born Missak Manouchian, a woodworker and political activist who led an immigrant laborer ... view
Character:
Missak Manouchian
Original title: Secret Défense
2008
In France, terrorist groups and intelligence agencies battle in a merciless war everyday, in the name of radically opposed ideologies. Yet, terrorist ... view
Character:
Al Barad
Original title: Le Chant des mariées
2008
The Nazi occupation of Tunisia strains the bonds of friendship between a Muslim woman and a Sephardic Jewess who are both preparing for their marriage ... view
Character:
Raoul
Original title: Musée haut, musée bas
2008
Un conservateur terrorisé par les plantes vertes, une mère plastifiée pour être exposée, un ballet de Saintes Vierges, des gardiens épuisés par ... view
Character:
Gilles Paulin
2008
After fleeing from his foster family, 11-years-old Khamsa returns to the gypsy camp where he was born. With his cousin, Tony "The Midget", Khamsa drea ... view
Character:
Khamsa's Father
Jul 2008 (first aired)
The intimate world of Saddam Hussein and his closest inner circle is in this gripping four-part drama that charts the rise and fall of one of the most ... view
Character:
Qais (1 ep.)
Original title: Un Monde à nous
2008
Noé comes into sixth grade at the same time he discovers a new city and a new house where he has just moved with his father, Marc. Coached by him, No ... view
Character:
L'oncle de Noé (voice)
Original title: שבעה
2008
The Ohaion family is mourning the death of one of their relatives. In keeping with tradition, they gather together in the home of the deceased and sta ... view
Character:
Eliyau
Original title: Petites révélations
2008
"The choice of each period is intimate, as each period awakens a particular emotion in me. This emotion reflects what is around me, not everyone is ab ... view
Character:
2007
When an Egyptian terrorism suspect "disappears" on a flight from Africa to Washington DC, his American wife and a CIA analyst find themselves caught u ... view
Character:
Said Abdel Aziz
2007
Take a Bollywood film--a good Bolllywood film--with action, emotion, suspense, and laughter. With Indian actors who act, dance, sing and smother thems ... view
Character:
Gunter (voice)
2007
In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Sh ... view
Character:
Marjane's Father (voice)
Original title: La Disparue de Deauville
2007
An inspector who just suffered a family tragedy is looking for a missing older man. Man's family is of no help, or are they hiding something? He is he ... view
Character:
Pierre
2006
Le Chiffre, a banker to the world's terrorists, is scheduled to participate in a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro, where he intends to use his win ... view
Character:
Alex Dimitrios
Original title: Le serpent
2006
A ruthless gang led by private detective Joseph Plender is extorting rich people and famous fashion photographer Vincent Mandel seems the next victim. ... view
Character:
Sam
Original title: Le Voyage en Arménie
2006
This is a story about returning to ones ancestral homeland. Anna is a cardiologist who discovers her father has fled to his native Armenia after being ... view
Character:
Sarkis Arabian
Original title: J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka
2005
January 1966. In a Paris apartment, police discovers the corpse of Georges Figon, the man who broke the scandal of the Ben Barka affair and undermined ... view
Character:
Mehdi Ben Barka
Original title: Zaïna, cavalière de l'Atlas
2005
Young Zaina, must lead a caravan of precious thoroughbreds to Marrakech to take part of the most prestigious of all races : the Agdal. Along she'll ha ... view
Character:
Omar
2005
She is a scientist. He is a Lebanese doctor. They meet at a banquet and fall into a carefree, passionate relationship. But difficulties abound because ... view
Character:
He
Original title: Le Démon de midi
2005
Anne Cestac accepts the obvious: her husband Julien, in his forties, has fallen madly in love with another woman. Annoyed, Anne sets out to find poten ... view
Character:
Julien Cestac
2005
Paris, the Sentier district. Christmas is approaching and Vahé Krikorian's life is falling apart. The shop he runs with his father is about to close. ... view
Character:
Sahak
Original title: Dans tes rêves
2005
Ninth is a promising young rapper whose reputation does not exceed even the few streets of his neighborhood. With his band and supported by Keuj, hair ... view
Character:
Wilson
Original title: ולקחת לך אישה
2004
The story takes place in Haifa, Israel, in 1979, during three days before the Shabbat. A young woman trying to raise three children, work from home, a ... view
Character:
Eliyahoo
Original title: Ni pour, ni contre (bien au contraire)
2003
"Ni Pour, Ni Contre" tracks the fall of a young TV camerawoman, Caty, after she becomes involved with a group of petty criminals and their enigmatic l ... view
Character:
Freddy
Original title: La légende de Parva
2003
The island of Kiam was once a paradise place with a kind Maharaja as a ruler. But one day the villainous Malaw killed the island’s ruler and deprive ... view
Character:
Swami (voice)
Original title: Un monde presque paisible
2002
Set during the largely unexplored period immediately following World War II, the film follows a group of mostly Jewish Parisians who attempt to restar ... view
Character:
Albert
2002
Aram, an ex-soldier from the Armenian cause, has come to France to close an arms deal under secret service surveillance. Held responsible and banished ... view
Character:
Aram
2002
Regina meets charming Joshua while vacationing in Martinique, as she contemplates ending her whirlwind marriage to enigmatic Charlie. Upon her return ... view
Character:
Lieutenant Dessalines
2002
Interrogated by a customs officer, a young man recounts how his life was changed during the making of a film about the Armenian genocide. ... view
Character:
Arshile Gorky
May 2002 (first aired)
Tense drama series about the different challenges faced by the British Security Service as they work against the clock to safeguard the nation. The ti ... view
Character:
Dariush Bakhshi (8 ep.)
1999
Micheline, who is pregnant, lives in a home for women from which she tries to observe the world with calm and serenity. Among other women of the home ... view
Character:
Simon
Original title: Tempête dans un verre d'eau
1997
American actor-director Arnold Barkus made this low-budget French film, a comedy set in New York, with scenes taking place in Chinatown, in a Franco-G ... view
Character:
1997
In this French gangster drama, a young hoodlum, new to his famed father's dubious profession, successfully completes his first hit but then finds hims ... view
Character:
Simon
Original title: Le silence de Rak
1997
The adventures of Rak, who after his dismissal begins to reflect on the meaning of the word work and on the act of working. ... view
Character:
Customer
Original title: Chacun cherche son chat
1996
When Chloe, a young Parisian, decides to take a long-overdue vacation, she has to find someone to look after Gris-Gris, her beloved cat. Everyone, inc ... view
Character:
Carlos
1994
Camille is a composer going back to his homeland Lebanon to write a song about his country. Raya is looking for her lost son. They meet, fall in love, ... view
Character:
Original title: Le Poisson Rouge
1994
A woman with her hands full finds navigating the city streets nearly disastrous for her aquatic pal but for the clever use of a common prophylactic. ... view
Character:
Customer
1989
To celebrate the bicentennial of the French revolution, an exposition of mannequins representing the deputies brought together in 1789 to discuss the ... view
Character: