The Biography

Karim Saleh (born March 7, 1978, in Lyon, France) is a French actor of Lebanese descent, raised in Beirut, Lebanon, and fluent in Arabic, English, and French. He trained in London, and his career was launched when Egyptian director Youssry Nassrallah introduced him to director Andy Litvack. He is currently based in the United States and also works as a director and cinematographer. His most notable film credits include Ziad Jarrah in The Hamburg Cell (2004, HBO, directed by Antonia Bird), Issa (Luttif Afif / Mohammed Massalha) in Munich (2005, directed by Steven Spielberg), the Saracen Messenger in Kingdom of Heaven (2005, directed by Ridley Scott), a Guard in Iron Man 2 (2010, directed by Jon Favreau), Karim in The Imperialists Are Still Alive! (2010), Adel in The Attack (2012, directed by Ziad Doueiri), Rafik in 45 Minutes to Ramallah (2013), a Zealot Leader in Risen (2016), Raymond Davis in The Narrow World (2017), a Translator in Vice (2018, with Christian Bale), Sultan in Luxor (2020, with Andrea Riseborough), Gene in Please Baby Please (2022), and Israeli Juliano in Yes Repeat No (2023). On television he is best known as Hussen in Transparent (2014, 3 episodes, Amazon Prime), Marcel in Counterpart (2017, Starz), Hussein Kamel in House of Saddam (2008, BBC/HBO), Joshua in The Ten Commandments (2006), Nabil Kahn in Lie to Me (2009), and Akim Al Farouk in Cellule de crise (2020, 6 episodes), with earlier credits in Highlander: The Series (1995, 1996).