Omid Djalili

Omid Djalili
Djalili at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival
Born	(1965-09-30) 30 September 1965 Chelsea, London, England
Medium	Film, television, stand-up
Subject(s)	Religion, race, culture, stereotypes, human interaction

Omid Djalili (/əˈmiːd dʒəˈlɪli/; Persian: امید جلیلی‎; born 30 September 1965)^[1] is a British stand-up comedian, actor, television producer and writer.

Personal life

Djalili was born in Chelsea, London to Iranian Bahá'í parents and is a Bahá'í himself.^[2][3] He attended Holland Park School and then the University of Ulster in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, studying English and Theatre studies.^[4]

Djalili is a Chelsea fan.^[5] He is married and has three children.^[6][7]

Comedy career

Djalili performing at the Arts Depot in 2007

The first significant success of his stand-up comedy career was at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1995 with "Short, Fat Kebab Shop Owner's Son", followed by "The Arab and the Jew" in 1996.

He has performed in numerous countries, including Australia, Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Canada and the United States, where he had his own HBO Special and did 22 episodes of the NBC sitcom Whoopi with Whoopi Goldberg.

He did his part for Comic Relief after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami and also in 2005 he appeared on the British TV show Top Gear as a celebrity driver. The same year he broke Edinburgh Festival box office records with over 16,500 ticket sales.

In 2006, Sky Television picked him to be the face of their Saturday night film premières, and he also announced a new tour of the UK called 'No Agenda', from January 2007 until March 2007, covering 23 different dates. The No Agenda tour DVD was released in late 2007.

On 18 March 2007, he was voted by the British public as the 60th best stand-up comedian in a Channel 4 programme "The 100 Greatest Stand-Ups". On 26 October 2007, he guest-presented the BBC political quiz show Have I Got News for You.^[8] The Omid Djalili Show started on BBC1 on 17 November 2007. The series is a mix of sketches and stand-up material. A second series was recorded in late 2008 and began broadcast on BBC1 on 20 April 2009. He performed on We Are Most Amused on ITV1 to mark Prince Charles's 60th birthday in 2008.

A touring stand-up, his next tour starts on 14 October 2011 although previews of this tour are being performed in smaller venues such as The Beggar's Theatre, Millom. Another small venue that he has performed in is the Victoria Hall in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. When he was there, he did an interview with local radio, 6 Towns Radio about his show in Hanley.^[9]

Acting career

Djalili has appeared in a number of films, most notably Gladiator, The Mummy, Mean Machine, The World Is Not Enough, Alien Autopsy, Spy Game, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Grow Your Own, Notting Hill, Mr Nice, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Sex and the City 2 and provides his voice in Over the Hedge.

He had observed that he usually appears as a generic Middle Eastern background character in many of these films, often commenting that he appears in the James Bond film as the "Second Azerbaijani oil pipe attendant". He appeared as Nasim in the U.S. sitcom Whoopi, starring Whoopi Goldberg, and picked up an international film award for Best Supporting Actor in Casanova, starring alongside Heath Ledger and Jeremy Irons.

On 12 February 2009, Cameron Macintosh (producer) announced that Djalili would appear as the second Fagin in the new West End production of Oliver! at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London. Omid took over from Rowan Atkinson, who was contracted until 18 July 2009.^[10]

In 2009, Djalili became the voice of Yusuf Amir in the popular gaming series Grand Theft Auto. He took up the role in the Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony spin-off game. In 2010, he starred in the David Baddiel scripted film The Infidel.

In 2010, Djalili starred in a series of TV and cinema adverts for Moneysupermarket.com.^[11]

Djalili appeared in the short-lived NBC sitcom The Paul Reiser Show, which was a midseason replacement for the 2010-11 television season.^[12]

For the BBC Learning project "Off By Heart Shakespeare", Omid played Lord Capulet from Romeo and Juliet and delivered the speech "Hang thee, young baggage, disobedient wretch!"^[13]

Djalili will appear in the Sky TV adaptation of "Moonfleet' shooting in Ireland in 2013.

Other activities

On June 2010, Djalili appeared in a Meltdown Festival concert^[14] given by the Philharmonia Orchestra at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, performing the part of the narrator in 'Rubaiyat', a tone poem by American classical composer Alan Hovhaness which sets the words of Omar Khayyám to music. He also appeared on the Graham Norton Show on 17 February 2012, alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Cuba Gooding Jr..

Filmography

Cinema

• The Mummy (1999)
• Notting Hill (1999)
• Mad Cows (1999)
• The World Is Not Enough (1999)
• Gladiator (2000)
• Spy Game (2001)
• Mean Machine (2001)
• Anita and Me (2002)
• Cross My Heart (2003)
• Deadlines (2004)
• The Calcium Kid (2004)
• Modigliani (2004)
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
• Casanova (2005)
• Alien Autopsy (2006)
• Over the Hedge as Tiger, the bad tempered Persian cat (2006)
• Grow Your Own (2007)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
• The Love Guru (2008)
• Dead Man Running (2009)
• The Infidel (2010)
• Sex and the City 2 (2010)
• Animals United (2010)
• Mr. Nice (2010)
• Big Fat Gypsy Gangster (2011)

Television

• The Friday Night Armistice (1996)
• Alexei Sayle's Merry-Go-Round (1998)
• The Bill (1998)
• Barking (TV series) (1998)
• The Lake of Darkness (1999)
• Cleopatra (1999)
• Coming Soon (1999)
• Small Potatoes (1999)
• Black Books (2000)
• Jason and the Argonauts (2000)
• Lenny Henry in Pieces (2000)
• So What Now? (2001)
• Relic Hunter (2002)
• Dinotopia: The Series (2002)
• Between Iraq and a Hard Place (2003)
• Whoopi (2003)
• Live at the Apollo (2004)
• Age of Awakening (2005)
• Chopra Town (2005)
• One Night Stand (HBO) (2005)
• My Family and Other Animals (2005)
• Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive (2006)
• Jack Dee's Lead Balloon (2006)
• Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (2006)
• TV Heaven, Telly Hell (2007)
• Have I Got News For You (2007)
• The Omid Djalili Show (2007)
• Premier League All Stars (2007)
• Dawn French's Boys Who Do Comedy (2007)
• Never Mind The Buzzcocks (2008)
• The Omid Djalili Show - Series 2 (2009)
• Would I Lie To You? (2009)
• The Paul Reiser Show (2011)
• Omid Djalili's Little Cracker (2012)
• Splash! (2013)
• The Great Sport Relief Bake Off (2014) - Guest presenter for one episode

Video games

• Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony as Yusuf Amir^[15] (2009)
• 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand as Eddie^[16] (2009)

Awards

Djalili has won awards for his comedy. These include the EMMA Award, Time Out Award, and LWT Comedy Award for Best Stand-up Comedian, Spirit of the Fringe Award as well as the One World Media Award for his Channel 4 documentary, Bloody Foreigners.

He has also been nominated for awards, such as the Perrier Award for Best Comedian, the Gemini Award for Best Comedy Performance of 2003, the South Bank Award for Best Comedy of 2003, the Royal Television Society Award for Best Stand-up, and the European TV Award for his Bloody Foreigners.

Stand-up DVDs

• No Agenda: Live at the London Palladium (26 November 2007)
• Live in London (16 November 2009)
• Tour of Duty (19 November 2012)

See also

• Iranian stand-up comedy

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Omid Djalili.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Omid Djalili

• Omid Djalili's official web site
• Omid Djalili at the Internet Movie Database
• Omid Djalili on Twitter