Tahar Rahim Biography

Tahar Rahim (born 4 July 1981) is a French actor of Algerian descent. He is known for his starring role as Malik El Djebena in the 2009 award-winning French movie A Prophet by Jacques Audiard.

Rahim has demonstrated multilingual skills and an ear for accents, having played in Corsican and Arabic in addition to French in A Prophet, and in Scottish Gaelic for his role as the Seal Prince in Kevin Macdonald's The Eagle.

Early life

Born in Belfort, France, his family is originally from the region of Oran, Algeria.

After earning a Baccalaurat at the Lyce Condorcet of Belfort, he enrolled first in Sports and then Computer Science programs. After two subsequent years of an unmotivated boredom with the subjects in Strasbourg and Marseille, Rahim decided to pursue his passion and began to study film at the Paul Valry University of Montpellier. His life as a film student was chronicled in a documentary by Cyril Mennegun titled "Tahar, student", aired on French TV channel France 5 in 2006.

Following this, Rahim moved to Paris in 2005 and studied drama at the Laboratoire de l'Acteur under Hlne Zidi-Chruy while working in a factory during the week, and in a night club on weekends to make ends meet.

Career

In mid-2006, after signing with an agent, Rahim won a part in the hit [[Canal+]] television series La Commune written by Abdel Raouf Dafri. Dafri penned the first draft of the script to A Prophet. Rahim then met Audiard when the two coincidentally shared a cab while the two were leaving a set. Tahar introduced himself saying that "I knew it was Audiard and I said I was a fan but I think I was a bit silly" and was afterward very surprised that Audiard remembered him enough to contact him about A Prophet. After a two-line appearance in 2008 horror movie Inside starring Batrice Dalle, he went through a gruelling three months of auditioning. After eight callbacks, he landed his breakthrough role.

Rahim also starred in controversial Chinese director Lou Ye's film Love and Bruises. The director, twice banned from making movies by the Chinese government, likely met Tahar at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival where they were each presenting Spring Fever and A Prophet respectively. Love Bruises is the adaptation of the banned biography of Jie Liu Falin.

Another project he starred in was Des hommes libres (Free men), the biopic on Si Kaddour Benghabrit, founder of the Great Mosque of Paris, directed by Ismal Ferroukhi of Le Grand Voyage fame.

He was selected to be on the jury for the Un Certain Regard section of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.

He is currently starring in the European crime drama television series The Last Panthers.

Personal life

Rahim is married to French actress Lela Bekhti, whom he met while filming A Prophet in 2007.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Director	Notes
2006	Tahar l'tudiant	Tahar	Cyril Mennegun
2007	Inside	a policeman	Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury
2007	La Commune	Yazid Fikry	Philippe Triboit
2009	A Prophet	Malik	Jacques Audiard	Lumires Award for Best Actor Globes de Cristal Award for Best Actor Csar Award for Most Promising Actor Csar Award for Best Actor European Film Award for Best Actor Nominated"?BAFTA Rising Star Award
2011	The Eagle	Prince of the Seal People	Kevin Macdonald
2011	Les Hommes libres	Younes	Ismael Ferroukhi
2011	Love and Bruises	Mathieu	Lou Ye
2011	Black Gold	Prince Auda	Jean-Jacques Annaud
2012	Our Children	Mounir	Joachim Lafosse
2013	The Past	Samir	Asghar Farhadi
2013	Grand Central	Gary	Rebecca Zlotowski
2013	The Informant	Redjani Belimane	Julien Leclercq
2014	The Cut	Nazaret Manoogian	Fatih Ak?n
2014	Samba	Wilson	Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano
2014	Le Pre Nol	Le Pre Nol	Alexandre Coffre
2015	The Last Panthers	Khalil	Johan Renck	TV series
2015	The Anarchists	Jean Albertini	Elie Wajeman
2016	The Woman in the Silver Plate		Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Theatre

• 2007 - 2008: Libres sont les papillons in the role of the blind character Benjamin. The play was written by Leonard Gershe, directed by Hlne Zidi-Chruy and staged at the Ct Court Theater, 11th arrondissement of Paris.