Iranian actor Homayoun Ershadi of The Kite Runner, Taste of Cherry dies at 78
Iranian actor Homayoun Ershadi of ‘The Kite Runner’ dies at the age of 78. He also acted in the Iranian film ‘Taste of Cherry’.
Iranian architect turned actor Homayoun Ershadi has died at the age of 78. He was best known internationally for his role in the Afghanistan-set film (2007), an adaptation of the acclaimed novel.
State News Agency of Iran iRNA It was reported that the actor died on November 11 after a battle with cancer. Ershadi got his first major screen role in the 1997 Cannes Palme d’Or-winning drama The Sun after a chance meeting with the director when he stopped at a red light in Tehran.
The veteran was fond of telling how he heard someone tapping on his window and when he rolled the window down, a man introduced himself and said: ‘I want to make a film. Would you like to live in it?’
Born on March 26, 1947 in Isfahan, Ershadi was around 50 years of age when he had this serendipitous meeting. He recently returned to Iran after living in Vancouver following the Islamic Revolution in the 1980s, where he spent more than ten years working for an architectural firm.
His acting career quickly took off after his performance in the 1997 drama, In which he played a man looking for someone to bury him under a cherry tree after his planned suicide. Ershadi amassed more than 90 credits in less than three decades.
Ershadi gained international fame for his role as the fatherly Baba in the 2007 drama ‘Taste of Cherry’, about a deep friendship between two boys growing up in 1970s Kabul who are torn apart by major world events.
Further international credits include the historical epic ‘Agora’ (2009) and the military thriller ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ (2012). He also appeared in Hassan Nazar’s UK-set drama, ‘Utopia’ (2015), which centered on a woman who travels to the UK for fertility treatment.