Paul Chahidi

Paul Chahidi is an Iranian-born British actor who grew up in Iran until his family settled in Britain in 1979 and later trained as an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama after studying Arabic and Persian at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is an associate artist with the Royal Shakespeare Company and took part in all-male stagings of Twelfth Night and Richard III at Shakespeare's Globe and on Broadway. His Maria in a 2013 Twelfth Night brought him a Theatre World Award and a Clarence Derwent Award as well as Olivier and Tony nominations. On screen he played defense minister Nikolai Bulganin in Armando Iannucci's historical comedy The Death of Stalin (2017) and had a recurring part as the Reverend Francis Seaton, a vicar, in the BBC Three comedy This Country from 2017 to 2020, earning a Royal Television Society nomination for best comedy performance by a male.