Nazanin Boniadi (; [nɑːzæˈniːn bonjɑːˈdiː]; born 22 May 1979) is a British actress and activist. Born in Tehran and raised in London, she attended university in the United States, where she landed her first major acting role as Leyla Mir in the soap opera General Hospital (2007–2009) and its spin-off General Hospital: Night Shift (2007). Since then, Boniadi has played Nora in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2011), Fara Sherazi in the spy thriller series Homeland (2013–2014), Esther in the historical drama film Ben-Hur (2016), Clare Quayle in the sci-fi thriller series Counterpart (2017–2018), Zahra Kashani in the action thriller film Hotel Mumbai (2018), and Bronwyn in the first season of the fantasy series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022).
She was an Amnesty International spokesperson from 2009 to 2015 and served as a board member for the Center for Human Rights in Iran from October 2015 until February 2021. Her focus has been on youth and women's rights.
Nazanin Boniadi was born 22 May 1979 in Tehran in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. Less than a month after her birth, she and her parents left Iran and applied to become political refugees in London.
Boniadi attended an independent school in Hampstead, London. As a young girl, she played violin and performed ballet.
Boniadi earned a bachelor's degree with honours, in biological sciences from the University of California, Irvine (UCI). At UCI, she won the Chang Pin-Chun Undergraduate Research Award for molecular research involving cancer treatment and heart transplant rejection. Boniadi was also assistant editor-in-chief of MedTimes, UCI's undergraduate medical newspaper.
Boniadi changed her career path from science to pursue acting in 2006. In 2009, she studied a contemporary drama short course at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
Boniadi's first major acting role was as Leyla Mir on the daytime drama General Hospital and its SOAPnet spin-off series General Hospital: Night Shift, making her the first contract actor to play a Middle Eastern character in American daytime television history. She is also the first actress born in Iran to ever be on contract on an American soap opera.
Boniadi played supporting roles in several major Hollywood film productions, such as Charlie Wilson's War, Iron Man, and The Next Three Days.
She played Nora, a love interest for Neil Patrick Harris's character Barney Stinson, on the sixth season of the hit CBS show How I Met Your Mother in 2011. She reprised this role during the show's seventh and ninth seasons.
In August 2012, Boniadi starred opposite George Clooney in a Nespresso TV ad.
In May 2013, Boniadi joined the cast of Homeland season 3 as CIA analyst Fara Sherazi, and was promoted to a series regular for the show's fourth season.
Boniadi also appeared in an eight-episode arc on season 3 of Scandal as antagonist Adnan Salif. She portrayed Esther, the title character's wife, in the 2016 remake of Ben-Hur.
She narrated the soundtrack to the 2014 Iranian documentary film, To Light a Candle, made by Maziar Bahari and focusing on the state-sanctioned persecution of Baháʼís in Iran.
She starred with Dev Patel and Armie Hammer in the 2018 feature film Hotel Mumbai, a dramatisation of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, as British-Iranian heiress Zahra Kashani.
From 2018 to 2019, Boniadi received critical acclaim for portraying the series regular role of Clare Quayle in the Starz espionage drama Counterpart.
In early 2020, it was revealed that Boniadi had been cast in an undisclosed role in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Amazon Prime. In February 2022, it was announced she would be playing the character of Bronwyn, described as a single mother and healer. Boniadi stepped aside from the role prior to the show filming its second season; the role was not recast. Despite initial reporting, she clarified that the choice was unrelated to her decision to prioritize her advocacy.
In 2024, Boniadi joined the cast of the independent thriller, The Saviors, alongside Adam Scott, Danielle Deadwyler, Greg Kinnear, Ron Perlman, Colleen Camp, Kate Berlant, and Theo Rossi.
Boniadi has been involved in human rights activism, with a focus on youth and women's rights. She was a spokesperson for Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), with a focus on the unjust conviction and treatment of Iranian youth, women, and prisoners of conscience, from 2009 until 2015. She has her own official blog page on the AIUSA website and continues to partner with them. In 2020, she was appointed as an ambassador for Amnesty International UK, with a focus on women and Iran.