Nazanin Boniadi

Nazanin Boniadi (Persian: نازنین بنیادی, pronounced Naa-za-neen Bon-yaadi) is a British-Iranian actress currently living and working in the US.

Early life

Boniadi was born in Tehran, Iran. Her parents moved to London when she was an infant. She performed violin and ballet as a young girl.She was educated at a private high school and later moved to the US where she earned a Bachelor's Degree, with Honors, in Biological Sciences from the University of California Irvine. At UCI, she won the Chang Pin-Chun Undergraduate Research Award for molecular research involving cancer treatment and heart transplant rejection. She was also Assistant Editor-in-Chief of MedTimes, UCI's undergraduate medical newspaper.

Acting

Boniadi's first major acting role was as Leyla Mir on the Emmy Award-winning daytime drama General Hospital and its SOAPnet spin-off series Night Shift, making her the first contract actor to play a Middle Eastern character in American daytime television history. She is also the first Iranian-born actress to ever be on contract on an American soap opera.

She was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Daytime Drama Series in 2008 for her role in General...
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