Azita Ghanizada

Azita Ghanizada's life in American began as a political asylum seeker. Her father's relationships from working at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran afforded her family the opportunity to flee Afghanistan when she was a baby. She learned most of her English from watching American Television in the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C; her fascination to learn from American T.V., combined with the family's regular trips to a local cinema that showed Bollywood movies, and her mother's passionate love of Indian and American film stars, inspired her to become an actress.[1] She relocated to Los Angeles, California and began her on-camera career by working in television commercials and guest starring on popular television shows. Her multi-ethnic appearance has enabled her to remain a chameleon on film and TV.[1] In the Laura Neri film A Kiss on the Nose, Ghanizada played the lead role of Chiara, a performance for which she received a film festival best actress nomination. A few of her notable television guest-starring roles include How I Met Your Mother, Entourage, Veronica Mars, The Mentalist , Bones, Psych, Ghost Whisperer, Castle, and Up All Night.

In 2008, Ghanizada joined the cast of the General Hospital prime-time spin-off General Hospital: Night Shift for season 2 as Dr. Saira Batra, a specialist in holistic medicine.[2] In 2009, Ghanizada appeared HBO's Entourage (season 6, episode 2) and joined the cast of the television pilot Tough Trade starring Sam Shepard and Cary Elwes, from Weeds creator Jenji Kohan, and executive producer T Bone Burnett. In 2010, she joined David Strathairn as a primary cast member of the American Syfy Channel series Alphas where she played Rachel Pirzad, a woman with enhanced sensory abilities.[3] Alphas was picked up to series in 2011, but only lasted two seasons. In 2014, she filmed the comedy pilot Ellen More or Less for NBC directed by Peyton Reed. In 2019 she recurred on "Ballers" and "Good Trouble" as Kendra Zahir.

In 2016, Ghanizada appeared in the feature Complete Unknown opposite Rachel Weisz and Michael Shannon, in 2017 she began production on Kevin Smith's feature film Killroy Was Here.[4]. Her latest slate of features include a small role in Gabriella Cooperwaithe's "The Friend," as well as the comedy feature "We Broke Up."

In 2016, Azita founded the MENA Arts Advocacy Coalition, MAAC, and began to advocate on behalf of Middle Eastern North African (MENA) and South Asian (described as "MENASA" and defined as to include those who are from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, according to MAAC) performers. She and MAAC member, "Assaf Cohen", spent two years lobbying SAG-AFTRA to include Middle Eastern North African (MENA) as its own diverse category in the producers theatrical contracts. In 2017, their advocacy work proved successful and for the first time in 37 years, a new diversity category was introduced to the 2017 SAG-AFTRA - AMPTP TV/Theatrical contracts.[5] In 2018, MAAC presented the first ever study on MENA performers on PrimeTime TV [6] She actively speaks on representation and inclusion issues in the media, on social media, in business environments and on industry panels.

• Azita Ghanizada on IMDb