Tahar Rahim: The Life Story Behind France's Rising Star

Tahar Rahim was twenty-nine when A Prophet made him famous, and the film is still the centre of his career, the role against which every other role is measured. He was born on 4 July 1980 in Belfort, a town in eastern France near the border with Switzerland, to Algerian parents who had come from the Oran region, and he grew up in a housing estate, in a family that was Muslim, Algerian and French, all at once. The background is the background of a generation of French actors of North African origin, men and women who grew up between two cultures and who learned to act in both, and Rahim is one of the finest of them. A Prophet, directed by Jacques Audiard in 2009, gave him the role of Malik El Djebena, a young prisoner who rises through the ranks of a French prison, and the performance won him the César for Most Promising Actor and the European Film Award for Best Actor, and it announced a major talent.

Belfort, 1980: A Childhood Between Two Countries

Belfort is a town in the Territoire de Belfort, in eastern France, near the Swiss border, a place of industry, of a famous lion statue, and of a large population of North African origin, and Rahim was born there in 1980. His parents had come from Algeria, from the region of Oran, and they raised their children in France, speaking Arabic at home and French at school, and the two languages, the two cultures, the two histories, were the air that Rahim breathed. He grew up in a housing estate, in a working-class neighbourhood, and he has described his childhood as ordinary and happy, with school, with friends, with football, and with a family that valued education and hard work. The estate is not a glamorous beginning, and it is not a tragic one either; it is a real beginning, and it gave Rahim a sense of the world as it is, not as it is imagined in Paris.

The between-two-countries childhood matters, because it is the foundation of Rahim’s acting. He learned to move between Arabic and French, between Algerian and French culture, between the home and the street, and the movement is visible in his performances, which often play men who are between worlds, who belong to more than one place and to none. Malik El Djebena, his most famous character, is a man who belongs to no group in prison, who is Arab but not accepted by the Arabs, who is French but not accepted by the French, and who survives by learning, by watching, by adapting, and Rahim plays him with the knowledge of a man who has lived that in-between life himself. The childhood is not the performance, but it is the source of the performance, and the source is deep.

Montpellier, Paris and the Decision to Act

Rahim did not go to drama school as a teenager; he came to acting later, after studying at university. He studied film at the Université Paul Valéry in Montpellier, in the south of France, where he learned about cinema, about directors, about the history of film, and where he began to think seriously about acting. The university years were a time of discovery: he watched films, he read, he talked about cinema, and he decided that he wanted to be an actor, not a critic, not a director, but a man who stands in front of a camera and becomes someone else. The decision was a brave one, because he had no connections in the film world, no famous family, no money, and the only thing he had was the desire and the talent, and he trusted both.

He moved to Paris, as every young French actor does, and he began to audition, to take small parts, to work in theatre, and to learn the profession from the inside. Paris is a hard city for a young actor, and it is harder for a young actor of Algerian origin, because the roles on offer are often stereotypes, the Arab, the criminal, the immigrant, and Rahim had to decide which roles to take and which to refuse. He took the small roles, he learned, and he waited, and the waiting was not passive; it was active, it was a time of study, of watching, of preparing for the role that would come. The role came in 2007, when he was cast in La Commune, a Canal+ series, and the series was the beginning, not the end, of a career that would soon change.

La Commune and the First Screen Work

La Commune, broadcast on Canal+ in 2007, was a series about a housing estate in the suburbs of Paris, about the people who live there, about the police, the gangs, the families, and Rahim played a young man in that world, a character who was close to the life he had known in Belfort. The series was not a huge success, but it was a serious work, and it gave Rahim his first regular television role, his first chance to play a character over many episodes, and his first experience of working with a director who took him seriously. The role also showed that he could play a young man from the suburbs without making him a stereotype, without reducing him to a cliché, and that ability, to play a real person rather than a type, would become the hallmark of his career.

The years after La Commune were years of small film roles, of auditions, of waiting, and of a growing reputation among casting directors who had seen him and who remembered him. He appeared in films, he worked in theatre, and he kept learning, and the learning was visible to the people who mattered, including Jacques Audiard, one of the most respected directors in France, who was looking for an unknown actor to play the lead in his next film, A Prophet. Audiard auditioned many actors, and he chose Rahim, a choice that surprised the French film world, because Rahim was not famous, he was not a star, he was a young man from Belfort who had done a television series and a few small films, and Audiard saw in him something that nobody else had seen: the ability to carry a film, to be on screen for almost every minute, and to make the audience believe in a character who changes completely over the course of the story.

A Prophet: Malik El Djebena

A Prophet, released in French as Un prophète, was directed by Jacques Audiard and released in 2009, and Rahim played Malik El Djebena, a nineteen-year-old Frenchman of Algerian origin who is sent to prison for six years for attacking a police officer, and who arrives in prison knowing nothing, belonging to no one, and who slowly learns how to survive. Malik is illiterate when he arrives, he is beaten, he is used by the Corsican gang that runs the prison, and he is forced to commit a murder, and over the course of the film he learns to read, he learns to plan, he learns to use the prison system, and he leaves prison as a powerful man, a man who has built his own network. The performance is extraordinary, because Rahim is on screen for almost the entire film, and the audience watches him change, from a frightened boy to a confident man, and the change is gradual, it is believable, and it is devastating.

The film was a triumph. It won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Rahim won the César for Most Promising Actor and the European Film Award for Best Actor, an extraordinary achievement for a young actor in his first leading role. The awards mattered, but the performance mattered more, because it announced a talent that French cinema had been waiting for: an actor who could play a man from the suburbs without making him a victim, who could play a criminal without making him a monster, and who could make the audience understand a world that most of the audience had never seen. A Prophet is now regarded as one of the best French films of its decade, and Rahim’s performance is at the centre of that reputation, and it remains the role by which he is judged.

The Past, The Cut and the International Years

After A Prophet, Rahim could have spent his career playing Malik again and again, in different prisons, with different names, and he chose not to. He took a role in The Past, released in French as Le Passé, directed by Asghar Farhadi in 2013, in which he played Samir, a man whose wife is in a coma, and who is trying to hold his family together while his wife’s former husband returns from Iran. The role is a quiet one, a man who is tired, who is guilty, who is trying, and Rahim plays him with a restraint that is the opposite of Malik’s intensity. The film was selected for Cannes, and it showed that Rahim could work with a great Iranian director, in a French film, playing a man who is not a criminal, not a prisoner, but an ordinary man in a difficult situation, and that the ordinary man was as interesting as the criminal.

He also starred in The Cut, directed by Fatih Akin in 2014, in which he played Nazaret Manoogian, an Armenian blacksmith who survives the Armenian genocide and who travels across the world searching for his daughters. The role required him to play a man who barely speaks, who has lost everything, who walks across continents, and Rahim plays him with a physicality that is almost silent, a performance built on the body, on the face, on the walk. The film was ambitious, it was controversial, and it showed that Rahim was willing to take risks, to work with a Turkish-German director on a film about the Armenian genocide, a subject that is painful and political, and to trust that the performance would speak for itself. The international years were a time of learning, of working with directors from different countries, and of building a career that was not confined to France.

The Looming Tower: Television in English

In 2018 Rahim starred in The Looming Tower, a Hulu series based on the book by Lawrence Wright, about the events leading up to the attacks of 11 September 2001, in which he played Ali Soufan, a Lebanese-American FBI agent who tried to warn his superiors about the threat from al-Qaeda. The role was his first major English-language television role, and it required him to act in English, to play a real person, and to hold his own in a cast that included Jeff Daniels, and he did it with a confidence that surprised American audiences who had not seen A Prophet. Ali Soufan is a man who is caught between the FBI and the CIA, between America and the Arab world, and Rahim plays him as a man who is frustrated, who is right, and who is ignored, and the frustration is the performance.

The Looming Tower mattered because it introduced Rahim to an American audience, and it proved that he could work in English, in a prestige television series, and be as good as he was in French. The series was praised for its intelligence, for its writing, and for its performances, and Rahim’s was among the best, because he played a man who is both American and Arab, who belongs to both worlds and who is trusted by neither, and the in-betweenness is the same quality that made Malik work. The role also showed that Rahim was not afraid of American television, that he was willing to take a supporting role in a large ensemble, and that he could make a supporting role feel like a leading role, which is the mark of a serious actor.

The Mauritanian: Mohamedou Ould Slahi

The role that brought Rahim his widest international recognition came in 2021, in The Mauritanian, directed by Kevin Macdonald, in which he played Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian man who was detained at Guantánamo Bay for fourteen years without charge, and who was tortured, and who wrote a memoir about his experience. The film is based on Slahi’s book, Guantánamo Diary, and Rahim plays him as a man who survives by his intelligence, by his humour, by his faith, and by his refusal to hate the people who are torturing him. The performance is extraordinary, because Rahim is on screen for most of the film, in a cell, in an interrogation room, being tortured, and he makes the audience believe in a man who is being broken and who refuses to break. He was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Actor and for a Golden Globe, and the nominations were the recognition of a performance that many critics called the best of his career.

The Mauritanian matters for another reason, which is that it is a film about Guantánamo, about torture, about the war on terror, and it asks its leading actor to play a real man, a man who is still alive, a man who wrote a book about what happened to him, and Rahim plays him with a respect that is visible in every scene. He does not play Slahi as a victim, he plays him as a man, a man who jokes, who argues, who prays, who survives, and the humanity is the point. The film was a success, and it introduced Rahim to an audience that had never seen A Prophet, and it proved that the young man from Belfort who had played Malik was now a mature actor, a man who could carry a film about one of the most painful subjects of our time, and carry it with grace.

Napoleon, Madame Web and the Hollywood Chapter

In 2023 Rahim appeared in Napoleon, directed by Ridley Scott, in which he played Paul Barras, a French politician who was a key figure in the years after the Revolution, and the role was a supporting one in a large, expensive historical epic, with Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon. The film was a major production, and Rahim’s part in it, though small, showed that he was now working with the biggest directors in Hollywood, and that he was trusted to play a historical figure in a film that would be seen around the world. He also appeared in Madame Web in 2024, a Marvel film in which he played Ezekiel Sims, a villain, and the film was not a success, but the role showed that Hollywood wanted him, that it saw him as a man who could play a villain, a man who could be menacing, and a man who could hold his own in a franchise film.

The Hollywood chapter is a mixed one, as Hollywood chapters often are: Napoleon is a serious film, Madame Web is not, and Rahim’s work in both shows the same professionalism, the same commitment, and the same refusal to phone in a performance. He has also appeared in Mary Magdalene in 2018, directed by Garth Davis, in which he played Judas, a role that is one of the most difficult in the Bible, a man who betrays his friend, and Rahim plays him as a man who believes, who doubts, who is torn, and the performance is a reminder that he is an actor who takes religion seriously, who understands faith, and who can play a man of faith without making him a caricature. The Hollywood work is part of the career, not the whole of it, and Rahim has kept his base in France, working in French film and television, and the balance is deliberate.

Family and the Private Life

Rahim is married to the actress Leïla Bekhti, whom he met on the set of A Prophet, in which she played a small role, and the couple married in 2010 and have children. Bekhti is herself a well-known French actress, of Algerian origin, and the couple are one of the most respected pairs in French cinema, two actors who understand each other’s work, who support each other, and who keep their private life private. Rahim rarely discusses his family in interviews, and he does not share his private life on social media, preferring to let the work speak. The discretion is a choice, and it is a choice that fits the actor: the man who plays prisoners, monks, agents and survivors is himself a private man, and the audience is allowed to see the work, not the life.

He remains connected to his Algerian roots, and he has spoken about being French and Algerian, about the two cultures, and about the importance of representing both on screen. He has said that he wants to play roles that are not stereotypes, that show Arab and North African men as they are, as fathers, as lovers, as workers, as people, and that desire is visible in his choice of roles: Malik, Samir, Ali Soufan, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, all men who are complicated, who are human, and who refuse to be reduced to a type. The career is a portrait of a man who knows who he is, who knows where he comes from, and who uses that knowledge to make his performances true.

Rahim has also worked in French television in recent years, taking roles in series that deal with contemporary France, with immigration, with justice, and with the lives of people who are rarely the heroes of a story. The television work is quieter than the film work, and it is less famous internationally, but it matters, because it keeps Rahim connected to the France he comes from, to the housing estates, to the suburbs, to the people who watch television in French and who see themselves on screen. The roles are often small, and they are often serious, and Rahim plays them with the same commitment as he brings to a Hollywood film, because he knows that the audience for French television is the audience that first knew him, and that the audience deserves the same work as the audience at Cannes.

He has also spoken about the responsibility of representing North African men on screen, and about the importance of telling stories that are true, even when the truth is painful. The responsibility is not a burden for Rahim; it is a motivation, a reason to choose the difficult role, to play the prisoner, the survivor, the agent, and to play them as men, not as symbols. The audience that watches his films is watching a man who knows what representation means, and who takes it seriously, and the seriousness is visible in every performance, in the care, in the detail, and in the refusal to simplify a human being into a type.

My Take:

The first thing to say about Tahar Rahim is that A Prophet is not just a film, it is a beginning, and the beginning is still the centre of his career. Malik El Djebena is a character who changes completely, from a frightened boy to a powerful man, and Rahim plays the change so gradually that the audience does not notice it happening, and then, at the end, realises that the man on screen is not the boy who arrived in prison. That kind of performance is rare, because it requires the actor to play the same character as two different people, and to make the audience believe both, and Rahim does it by trusting the writing, by trusting the director, and by trusting his own instincts. The César and the European Film Award were the recognition, but the performance is the thing, and it remains one of the best debut leading performances in French cinema.

The second thing is the in-betweenness, and how it shapes everything. Rahim is French and Algerian, he grew up in Belfort, he speaks French and Arabic, and he plays men who are between worlds: Malik, who belongs to no group in prison, Ali Soufan, who belongs to the FBI and to the Arab world, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who belongs to Mauritania and to Guantánamo. The in-betweenness is not a problem for Rahim; it is a gift, because it gives him a knowledge of what it means to be an outsider, to be watched, to be judged, and to survive by learning. The performances are built on that knowledge, and the audience feels it, even when it cannot name it, because the actor is playing something he knows.

The third thing is the body, and how Rahim uses it. In A Prophet the body changes: Malik arrives thin and frightened, and he leaves strong and confident, and the change is physical, it is in the walk, in the shoulders, in the face, and Rahim plays it without ever commenting on it. In The Cut the body is almost silent, a man who walks across continents, who barely speaks, and the performance is built on the walk, on the face, on the exhaustion. In The Mauritanian the body is tortured, it is broken, and Rahim plays the breaking without ever asking for pity, and the refusal to ask for pity is the performance. The body is the instrument, and Rahim plays it with a precision that is rare, and the precision is the result of training, of discipline, and of a deep understanding of what acting is.

The fourth thing is the intelligence, and how it shows. Rahim’s characters are intelligent men, even when they are uneducated: Malik learns to read, he learns to plan, he learns to use the system, and the learning is the story. Ali Soufan is intelligent, he sees the threat, he warns his superiors, and he is ignored, and the intelligence makes the ignoring more painful. Mohamedou Ould Slahi is intelligent, he jokes, he argues, he survives by his mind, and the mind is the weapon. Rahim plays intelligence without showing off, without making his characters clever, and the quietness of the intelligence is the point: these are men who think, who watch, who wait, and the thinking is the performance, and the audience watches the thinking and understands the man.

The fifth thing is the choice of roles, and how careful it is. Rahim could have played Malik again and again, in different films, with different names, and he chose not to. He played Samir in The Past, a quiet man in a difficult marriage, he played Nazaret in The Cut, a man who barely speaks, he played Ali Soufan, an FBI agent, he played Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a prisoner at Guantánamo, and each role is different, each role is a risk, and each role shows a different part of the actor. The carefulness is the mark of a serious actor, a man who thinks about his career, who plans, who refuses the easy role, and who trusts that the audience will follow him into difficult places. The audience has followed him, and the following is the reward.

The sixth thing is The Mauritanian, and why it matters. The film is about Guantánamo, about torture, about a man who was detained for fourteen years without charge, and it asks its leading actor to play a real man, a man who is still alive, and Rahim plays him with a respect that is visible in every scene. He does not play Slahi as a victim, he plays him as a man, a man who jokes, who prays, who survives, and the humanity is the point. The BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations were the recognition, but the performance is the thing, and it is one of the best performances of his career, because it takes a painful subject and makes it human, and the humanity is the hardest thing to achieve.

The seventh thing is the voice, and how it works in two languages. Rahim speaks French with a clarity that is Parisian, and he speaks English with a precision that is American, and the two voices are both his. In The Looming Tower he speaks English as Ali Soufan, an FBI agent, and the English is the performance: it is the voice of a man who belongs to America, who is trying to protect America, and who is not trusted by America. In A Prophet he speaks French as Malik, and the French is the performance: it is the voice of a young man from the suburbs, who is learning, who is growing, who is becoming. The voice is the instrument, and Rahim plays it well, and the audience hears the difference between the two men even before it sees it.

The eighth thing is the marriage to Leïla Bekhti, and what it means. Bekhti is an actress, she is Algerian, she is French, and she understands Rahim’s work, his background, his choices, and the understanding is the foundation of the marriage. The couple met on A Prophet, they married in 2010, they have children, and they have kept their private life private, which is a difficult thing for two famous actors, and a healthy thing. The privacy means that the audience sees the work, not the life, and the work is enough. The marriage is also a partnership of two artists who share a background, a language, a culture, and who support each other’s work, and the support is visible in the choices they make, in the roles they take, and in the careers they build.

The ninth thing is the refusal to be a stereotype, and how important it is. Rahim has played Arab men, North African men, Muslim men, and he has played them as people, not as types, not as terrorists, not as criminals, not as victims, but as men who are complicated, who are human, who have families, who have dreams, who make mistakes. The refusal is political, and it is artistic, and it is the most important thing about his career, because French cinema has a long history of stereotyping Arab men, and Rahim’s work is a correction, a proof that an Arab man on screen can be a hero, a lover, a father, a prisoner, a survivor, and that the audience will follow him. The correction is not a lecture; it is a series of performances, and the performances are the argument.

The tenth thing is the age, and the maturity. Rahim was twenty-nine when A Prophet came out, and he is now in his mid-forties, and the performances have grown with him: Malik was a young man, Samir was a man in his thirties, Mohamedou Ould Slahi was a man who had been broken and who survived, and each role shows a different age, a different maturity, and the maturity is the actor’s, not just the character’s. The later work is better because the actor is older, because he has lived more, because he has learned more, and the learning shows. The audience that watches The Mauritanian is watching a mature actor, a man who has spent fifteen years learning his craft, and the craft is visible in every scene.

The eleventh thing is the Hollywood work, and how to judge it. Napoleon is a serious film, Madame Web is not, and Rahim’s work in both is professional, committed, and honest, and the difference between the two films is not the actor’s fault. Hollywood offers money, it offers fame, it offers the chance to work with big directors, and it also offers roles that are smaller, less interesting, and less human than the roles French cinema offers, and Rahim has navigated that tension well, by taking the good Hollywood roles, by keeping his base in France, and by refusing to become a Hollywood actor. The balance is intelligent, and it is the balance of a man who knows what he wants, and who is not seduced by the size of the pay cheque.

The twelfth thing is the silence, and how Rahim uses it. In The Cut he barely speaks, in A Prophet he listens more than he talks, in The Mauritanian he is silent in his cell, and the silence is the performance. An actor who can be silent on screen, who can let the audience watch him thinking, is a rare actor, and Rahim is one of them. The silence is not empty; it is full of thought, of fear, of hope, of calculation, and the audience fills the silence with its own thoughts, and the filling is the pleasure. The silence is the opposite of the loud, shouting performances that television often rewards, and it is more powerful, because it asks the audience to come to the actor, rather than the actor coming to the audience.

The thirteenth thing is the comparison with other French actors of his generation, and how Rahim stands out. There are many good French actors, and there are few who can play a prisoner, a monk, an FBI agent, a survivor of Guantánamo, and a man in a coma’s husband, and play them all well. The range is the point, and the range is the result of training, of discipline, and of a willingness to take risks. Rahim’s range is not a trick; it is a discipline, and the discipline is visible in every performance, in the body, in the voice, in the silence, and in the intelligence. The audience that watches his films is watching an actor who can do anything, and who chooses to do the difficult thing, which is the best thing an actor can do.

The fourteenth thing is the future, and what it might hold. Rahim is in his mid-forties, he has a BAFTA nomination, a Golden Globe nomination, a César, a European Film Award, and he has the freedom to choose, and the choices he has made suggest that he will keep choosing difficult roles, keep working in France and in America, and keep refusing to be a stereotype. The audience should expect more films like The Mauritanian, more men who are complicated, more performances that ask the audience to think, and the expectation is a happy one, because Rahim has earned it. The young man from Belfort became one of the finest actors in French cinema, and the finest is still, at heart, the boy from the housing estate who wanted to act, and who never stopped.

The fifteenth thing is the faith, and how it appears in the work. Rahim is Muslim, and he has played men of faith, men who pray, men who doubt, and he plays them with a respect that is rare in cinema, which often treats faith as a cliché. In The Mauritanian, Slahi prays, and the prayer is not a decoration, it is a survival, a way of staying human in a place designed to break a man, and Rahim plays the prayer as if it were real, because for him, and for Slahi, it is real. The respect for faith is the respect for the character, and it is the respect for the audience, which is part of why the performance is so moving. The faith is not the whole story, but it is part of it, and Rahim does not hide it.

The sixteenth thing, and the last, is the lesson. Rahim’s career says that a boy from a housing estate in Belfort can become one of the finest actors in France, that an actor of Algerian origin can play any role, and that the work, done properly, is the way. He studied film, he moved to Paris, he took the small roles, he waited, he played Malik, and he never stopped, and the never stopping is the point. The lesson is not that talent will always be recognised, but that the work, done with intelligence and with honesty, is its own reward, and that the reward, when it comes, is deserved. Rahim’s reward has come, in the form of awards, of nominations, of a global audience, and the audience that watches him now knows that it is watching a great actor, and that the greatness was earned, in Belfort, in Montpellier, in Paris, and in every prison cell, every interrogation room, and every silent walk that he has played.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was Tahar Rahim’s breakthrough role?

He played Malik El Djebena in A Prophet (Un prophète), directed by Jacques Audiard in 2009, a young prisoner who rises through the ranks of a French prison. The role won him the César for Most Promising Actor and the European Film Award for Best Actor.

Where was Tahar Rahim born?

He was born on 4 July 1980 in Belfort, in eastern France near the Swiss border, to Algerian parents from the Oran region, and he grew up in a housing estate in the town.

Who did Tahar Rahim play in The Mauritanian?

He played Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian man detained at Guantánamo Bay for fourteen years without charge, in the 2021 film The Mauritanian, directed by Kevin Macdonald. He was nominated for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe for the performance.

What is The Looming Tower?

The Looming Tower is a 2018 Hulu series about the events leading up to 11 September 2001, in which Rahim played Ali Soufan, a Lebanese-American FBI agent who tried to warn his superiors about the threat from al-Qaeda.

Who is Tahar Rahim married to?

He is married to the actress Leïla Bekhti, whom he met on the set of A Prophet. They married in 2010 and have children, and both are among the most respected French actors of Algerian origin.

What role did Tahar Rahim play in Napoleon?

He played Paul Barras, a French politician who was a key figure in the years after the Revolution, in Ridley Scott’s film Napoleon, released in 2023, starring Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon.