Navid Negahban was born in June 2, 1968 in Mashhad, Iran and is an Iranian American actor.
Negahban took a liking to theater when he was 8 years old while provoking laughter from a large audience by portraying an old man on stage. He left Iran when he was 20 for Turkey and then Germany, where he spent eight-and-a-half years. In Germany, he worked for a theater company, and then in 1993 he moved to the United States. He is fluent in English, Persian, Dari and German. He has appeared in The Shield, The West Wing, Lost, and CSI: Miami. He has collaborated with Iranian-American actresses Necar Zadegan and Mozhan Marnò. In 2008, Negahban voiced the insane doctor Challus Mercer in the survival horror game Dead Space. Negahban also appeared as the main antagonist in the critically acclaimed TV series Homeland. In 2011 he won the Best Actor Award for the 2009 Iranian short film, Liberation at the Noor Iranian Film Festival, and in 2012, he returned to serve as an official festival judge.
