Bobby Naderi

Bobby Naderi was born in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War; he grew up amid displacement and resolve. That history still informs the work: a preference for roles carrying weight, humanity, and something genuinely at stake.Naderi’s performances carry the weight of the life behind them. His work spans arthouse and studio films. Sundance premieres and a BAFTA winner at one end, a global franchise at the other. Having worked with top-notch directors including David Ayer, Craig Gillespie, Azazel Jacobs, Babak Anvari, and Nina Menkes. Held together by an unhurried dedication to the craft and to the story being told.Taking on Matt Wiley in the Beekeeper franchise, first opposite Jason Statham and Jeremy Irons in Ayer’s Miramax/MGM thriller The Beekeeper, a global hit, and again in the sequel, which he wrapped last autumn under Timo Tjahjanto. It was his third film with Ayer, who had cast him in Bright opposite Will Smith and directed him on Fox’s Deputy the kind of return engagement a director offers an actor he trusts to hold a scene.On television, he most recently starred in Amazon’s The Better Sister, Olivia Milch’s adaptation of the Alafair Burke bestseller, with Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks as estranged sisters drawn back together by a murder. Naderi played Det. Matt Bowen, partner to Kim Dickens’s Det. Nancy Guidry, in an ensemble including Corey Stoll and Matthew Modine. Craig Gillespie directed the pilot.He honed the craft making Sundance indies, where three of his early features premiered: Nina Menkes’s Phantom Love, The Taqwacores, which he led, and Anvari’s BAFTA-winning Under the Shadow. That grounding carried him into studio pictures and prestige television.