Iranian-German actress Elnaaz Norouzi, best known internationally for her role in Netflix’s acclaimed series Sacred Games, has broken her silence on the political crisis gripping her birth country — and she has not held back.
‘Tehran’ actress Elnaaz Norouzi speaks up about Iran’s current condition
Speaking in a series of candid interviews, the 35-year-old actress, who holds German citizenship and has built a successful career in India and Hollywood, expressed deep frustration at the direction Iran is heading following the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In particular, she questioned the appointment of her son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as the country’s next supreme leader — a decision made, she says, entirely without the consent of the Iranian people.
“As a 6 year old we were made to chant ‘Death to America, Death to Israel’ in school. These are the things this regime forces upon people. There are so many rights people do not have in that country. This regime has no plans of leaving, it doesn’t listen to its people, people cannot even vote,” she told Screen magazine in an exclusive interview.
The anger in her words is rooted in something personal. Norouzi was born in Tehran and moved to Germany with her family as a child. Her parents, she says, have witnessed decades of the regime’s grip on Iranian life.
“As an Iranian being born at a time where this regime was full force, my parents have seen how the country was before and how it is now. It’s one of the few countries extremely rich in oil and other resources. It has everything, seeing that country go down even further, our currency has lost 98 percent of its value. An average person in Iran earns 100 dollars a month, and the cost of living is high. That’s why people are on the roads demanding the country They have taken it to ruins since the time they have come. They have killed youngsters, they don’t care about humanity or the people.
On the question of who will lead Iran next, she is equally blunt. “The next leader is just being chosen by them. People don’t have the right to say if they don’t want it, when they protest they are shot down, raped, or imprisoned. How exactly are the Iranians supposed to overthrow this regime, with empty hands? When the regime brings foreign militia from Afghanistan, Iraq into the country so that they can kill the Iranians,” she said, before adding: “They have also realized at this point, a lot of people working on the inside of the IRGC have also stopped doing it. Who chose Ali Khamenei’s son?”
Norouzi also took aim at what she describes as the regime’s deliberate use of Iranian oil wealth to destabilize the wider region. “All they want is to use the money that comes out of Iran to fund Hamas, Hezbollah, and others who indirectly attack Israel, create unrest in the Middle East. They are funding terrorist organizations to do their dirty job. Iranians have to live with that and we don’t want that,” she said.
The pattern of undemocratic succession is not new, she told NDTV. “Just like the past 47 years, people who are coming to power that Iranian people have not chosen. The same happened with Ali Khamenei; now there’s another supreme leader coming in that Iran has not chosen. This has been going on for 47 years. They are choosing another leader now. They had chosen a leader that none of the Iranians knew. They killed Khamenei. Now his son is going to be the supreme leader. We have no comments on that. We have no say.”
She recalled the 2009 protests as a defining moment that laid bare the system’s contempt for ordinary Iranians. “In 2009, there was a huge protest. Millions of people came out on the roads, chanting ‘Where is our vote?’ A lot of people died in that. People realized this is not the person we voted for, but this is the person who has come to office now,” she recalled.
“Even the leader of a country never has a hundred per cent of the votes. The whole point of life is that there are so many different types of people in this world with different opinions. Freedom of speech means exactly that,” she told the Hindustan Times.
For Norouzi, the freedom she enjoys outside Iran — the freedom to simply speak — carries with it a responsibility she takes seriously. “I’m trying to be the voice of the voiceless, because in Iran you don’t have a voice. You’re not allowed to speak against the government. The government will kill you. So what I and many other Iranians outside the country are doing is trying to be the voices of those who don’t have one,” she said.
She is also mindful of the limits of emigration as a solution. Whilst her own family were among those fortunate enough to leave, approximately 90 million Iranians cannot do the same. Living abroad has, however, sharpened her sense of what her homeland needs. “I wish that child marriage stops. There are many young girls whose parents marry them off to older men. I wish for women to be able to go into football stadiums and watch a match. I wish for women to be able to become judges. I wish for women to have the same rights as men when it comes to inheritance,” she said.
During her childhood, she recalls, leaving was always the plan. “During my childhood, they realized it when the revolution took place in 1979. Many other Iranians were born into this mess. As long as I remember, my parents were talking about leaving Iran as life was already getting terrible there,” she said.
Norouzi’s workfront
Norouzi moved to India in 2015 and has since established herself as one of the more recognizable international faces in the country’s entertainment industry. Her breakthrough came with Sacred Games — Netflix India’s first original series, Emmy-nominated and directed by Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane — in which she played the complex role of Zoya Mirza alongside Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.
She went on to appear in the Apple TV+ espionage thriller Tehran, the Hollywood action film Kandahar opposite Gerard Butler, Amazon’s Made in Heaven, and a string of Bollywood and regional Indian productions.
Before acting, she had spent more than a decade working as an international model for brands including Dior and Lacoste. IMDb She has also been offered roles in the Iranian film industry but has declined them all, citing the restrictions that prevail there.
Despite everything, she says she holds out hope — and a desire to return. “In a free Iran I will return home. I will return to my country and see my family. But then I will come back to my other country, which is India, where I live, where I’m very happy and where I feel very safe, and continue my work here.”
