Marwan Kenzari

Marwan Kenzari is a Dutch-Tunisian actor. Starting his career in 2008, he first came to prominence for his role in the 2013 film Wolf, which earned him a Golden Calf award for Best Actor. Since 2016, he has been portraying roles in English-language films, including Aladdin, The Old Guard and Black Adam, which earned him international recognition.

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Early life and education

Kenzari was born on 17 January 1983 in The Hague, Netherlands, to a Tunisian family. His father was a construction worker, while his mother was a housewife. As a teenager he was mainly interested in football before a girl he was seeing signed them up to audition for the Dutch version of the musical Chicago. In 2009, Kenzari graduated at the Maastricht Academy of Dramatic Arts. After graduation he was recruited by the Toneelgroep Amsterdam, which allowed him to tour in Moscow, London, Vienna and New York City with the group.

Career

Kenzari has acted in films and TV series in his native Dutch since 2008. In 2013, he won a Golden Calf for Best Actor at the Netherlands Film Festival for his role in the feature film Wolf. He trained for over a year to play the role of kickboxer Majid. With his toned body, he was also featured on the cover of Dutch Men's Health in 2013. His performance in the film was well received by critics, with Variety naming him an "International Star You Should Know". In 2014, Kenzari won a Shooting Stars Award at the Berlin International Film Festival.
In 2016 he appeared in the English-language films Collide, Ben-Hur and The Promise, which resulted in The Hollywood Reporter naming him amongst their list of "15 International Breakout Talents of 2016". In 2019, Kenzari played villain Jafar in Disney's live-action adaptation of Aladdin. He gained international recognition after portraying the role with mainstream media giving him the nickname "hot Jafar". In July 2020, Kenzari appeared in The Old Guard as one of the film's protagonists. In February 2021, Kenzari was cast to portray Ishmael Gregor / Sabbac in the 2022 film Black Adam. He has a minor role in the second season of the Netflix series The Night Agent, released January 2025.
He starred as the controversial Royal Netherlands East Indies Army officer Raymond Westerling in the 2020 film The East, which was released on Amazon Prime Video.

Personal life

Kenzari speaks Arabic, Dutch, English and French.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Note
2008	Katia's Sister	Giac
2009	The Last Days of Emma Blank	Martin
2010	Loft	Tom Fenneker
2011	Rabat	Zakaria
2012	Black Out	Youssef
2013	Wolf	Majid Zamari
2014	Hartenstraat	Daan
2014	Accused	Det. Ron Leeflang
2014	Reckless	Rico
2014	Gift from the Heart	Richard
2016	Collide	Matthias
2016	Ben-Hur	Druses
2016	The Promise	Emre Ogan
2017	The Mummy	Malik
2017	What Happened to Monday	Adrian Knowles
2017	Murder on the Orient Express	Pierre Michel
2018	The Angel	Ashraf Marwan
2019	Aladdin	Jafar
2019	Instinct	Idris
2020	The Old Guard	Yusuf Al-Kaysani / Joe
2020	De Oost	Raymond Westerling
2022	Black Adam	Ishmael Gregor / Sabbac
2023	Ghosted	Marco
2024	The Return	Antinous
2025	The Old Guard 2	Yusuf Al-Kaysani / Joe
TBA	Any Other Night	Max	Post-production