Fares Fares

Film

Fares has played major parts in films directed by his brother, Josef Fares. He debuted in Jalla! Jalla! (2000) and Kopps (2003). He starred in Bang Bang Orangutang (2005) and Kill Your Darlings (2006).

In 2010, Fares starred in the Swedish crime thriller Easy Money with Joel Kinnaman.^[6] The film was critically acclaimed and was picked up for American distribution by Harvey Weinstein.^[6]

In 2012, Fares made his Hollywood debut in the Denzel Washington movie Safe House.^[7] He played American CIA officer Hakim in Zero Dark Thirty (2012).^[8][9] Fares had a role in Child 44 (2014) with Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman.^[4][10] Fares played Senator Vaspar in the Star Wars franchise movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016).

For The Keeper of Lost Causes (2013), which was set in Denmark, Fares learned to speak Danish in two months.^[4] This film was the first of ten features based on Jussi Adler-Olsen's Department Q novels.^[11] Fares and Nikolaj Lie Kaas appeared in the first four of these films, produced by Zentropa. Their roles were later recast when the film rights were sold to Nordisk Film.^[11]

Fares is partially known for his long-standing collaborative relationship with director Tarik Saleh, most famously starring in his Cairo trilogy, consisting of The Nile Hilton Incident (2017), Boy from Heaven (2022), and Eagles of the Republic (2025).^[12][13] Each film examines and criticizes the political corruption within Egypt at different levels during different periods, with Fares' characters at the center of pivotal events or circumstances. He has also had minor roles in the director's other films The Contractor (2022) and Metropia (2009),^[12] as well as various music videos he's directed for Lykke Li.

In 2020, Fares made his producing debut with the miniseries Partisan. A few years later, in 2023, he made his directorial debut with A Day and a Half, a Netflix original film which was loosely inspired by a real story.^[14]

Television

In 2014, Fares portrayed Fauzi Nadal in the TV show Tyrant on the FX Network.^[15] Tyrant was renewed for a second season, which began airing in the summer of 2015,^[16] and a third season in summer 2016. From 2018 to 2019, Fares appeared in the two HBO series Westworld and Chernobyl. He portrayed the Forsaken Ishamael in The Wheel of Time in 2021, 2023 and 2025. In 2024, he appeared in the recurring role of Ruggiero in Netflix's The Decameron.

Theater

• 1996: Samuel Beckett's I väntan på Godot (Waiting for Godot) at Teater Tamauer, Sweden
• 2000: Dom, directed by Jasenko Selimovic, with Torkel Petersson, at the Gothenburg City Theatre (Göteborgs Stadsteater), Gothenburg, Sweden
• 2000: Natten före skogarna at Teater Tamauer, Sweden
• 2001: Tillbaka till öknen at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm, Sweden
• 2002: Köket at the Gothenburg City Theatre, Gothenburg, Sweden
• 2003: Brott, hemtjänst, straffpengar, pensionärsmord at Backstage, Sweden
• 2003: Den arabiska natten at Backstage, Sweden

Other work

• 2004: Fares and his brother Josef voice acted in the Swedish dub of Shark Tale^[17]
• Fares appears in two music videos for Lykke Li; 2011 single, "I Follow Rivers", directed by Tarik Saleh and 2014 album teaser, "I Never Learn"^[18]
• Appeared in Daniel Lemma's music video "If I Used To Love You" with Torkel Petersson^{[citation needed]}
• 2011: TV commercial for Tanqueray "Tonight We Tanqueray" — the bartender
• 2012: Short film, sponsored by Maiyet called Sleepwalking In the Rift, directed by Cary Fukunaga^[19][20]
• 2018: Voice acted in the video game A Way Out — Leo Caruso
• 2021: Additional voices for It Takes Two
• 2022: TV commercial for Volvo "The Parents" — the father
• 2025: Additional voices for Split Fiction

Film

Television

Video games