--- name: "Payman Maadi" canonical: "https://film.one/person/payman-maadi" fi1m_id: "payman-maadi" imdb_id: "nm1818216" tmdb_id: 559566 wikidata_id: "Q2893018" roles: ["Actor"] born: "30 July 1970" reviewed_on_fi1m: 4 average_fi1m_score: 79 average_as: "actor" average_over: 4 updated: "2026-09-17T13:03:29.637277+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Payman Maadi ## Identity Payman Maadi - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/payman-maadi - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** payman-maadi - **IMDb ID:** nm1818216 - **TMDB ID:** 559566 - **Wikidata ID:** Q2893018 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payman_Maadi, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2893018, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1818216/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/559566 Actor. Born 30 July 1970 in New York City, New York, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 30 July 1970, New York City, New York, USA - **Active:** 2011–present - **Also known as:** پیمان معادی, Payman Maādi, Peyman Moādi, Peyman Moadi, Peyman Maadi, بيمان المعادي - **Average Fi1m score:** 79, as actor, over 4 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 2010s 83 (3), 2020s 67 (1) - **Fi1m against the critics:** 79 to 80 across 4 titles - **Score spread:** 2 at 80+, 2 at 60–79, 0 under 60 - **Lead roles:** 1 of 3 acting credits billed first or second - **Genres:** Crime 2, Drama 2, Mystery 1, Sci-Fi & Fantasy 1, Thriller 1, Western 1 - **Screen time:** 4 hours of reviewed films - **Box office:** $97m across 2 films with figures - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payman_Maadi, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2893018, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1818216/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/559566 ## Streaming the US now - **Disney+:** [*A Separation*](https://film.one/film/a-separation.md) (93) - **HBO Max:** [*The Night Of*](https://film.one/tv/the-night-of.md) (81) - **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Crime 101*](https://film.one/film/crime-101.md) (67) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Payman Maadi > Payman Maadi is unusually persuasive as a man who cannot see why his decency is in question. His understated acting makes flawed people worth listening to; *A Separation* is where we most strongly recommend starting. In Asghar Farhadi's *A Separation* (2011), Payman Maadi plays Nader as a man who finds his own decency much easier to recognise than other people do. He does not need to make him obviously unpleasant; the certainty is enough to make him difficult company. This is the strongest reason to value Maadi's acting: he can make a flawed man's account of himself persuasive without asking us to accept it. We recommend the film without hesitation, though some of its plot complications look carefully arranged. Leila Hatami's Simin matters just as much to that success. She gives Simin equal force, and the actors make the marriage feel substantial enough for its troubles to matter. We were frustrated by Nader because Maadi makes him so persuasive while Hatami keeps giving us reasons to doubt him. His restraint is useful here: a more emphatic performance might have made the husband's faults easier to dismiss as somebody else's problem. Farhadi had first cast him in *About Elly* (2009), his acting debut, and *A Separation* was the breakthrough. The subsequent move into American work included Ali opposite Kristen Stewart in *Camp X-Ray* (2014) and Salim Khan in *The Night Of* (2016). He has continued to work in Iranian cinema, including *Just 6.5* (2019) and *Leila's Brothers* (2022). The recurring attraction is the pressure placed on people by family and circumstance. His restrained delivery, often conveying conflict with little dialogue, is well suited to that work. *Crime 101* (2026) offers a more qualified reason to seek him out. Maadi plays Sammy Kassem in Bart Layton's Los Angeles heist film, which is well cast but wears out some of our patience across its 141 minutes. Layton's debt to *Heat* is a problem no cast could be expected to solve. Start with Nader instead, and leave time afterwards to disagree about him. ## Biography Payman Maadi, also credited as Peyman Maadi or Peyman Moadi, is an Iranian-American actor, screenwriter and director. Born in New York City to Iranian parents, he moved to Iran as a child and later graduated in metallurgical engineering before entering the film industry as a screenwriter in the early 2000s. Maadi began acting with a role in Asghar Farhadi's *About Elly* (2009) and gained international recognition for his performance as Nader in Farhadi's *A Separation* (2011), for which he shared the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin International Film Festival. He has since appeared in films including *Camp X-Ray* (2014), *13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi* (2016), *Last Knights* (2015), *6 Underground* (2019) and *Law of Tehran* (2019), as well as television series such as *The Night Of* (2016) and *Westworld* (2016). He is also known for directing and writing films such as *The Snow on the Pines* (2012) and *Bomb: A Love Story* (2018). Maadi is credited as Sammy Kassem in the forthcoming *Crime 101* (2026). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (4) - *Crime 101* (2026), Fi1m 67, as Sammy Kassem — [page](https://film.one/film/crime-101.md) - *The Night Of* (2016), Fi1m 81, as Salim Khan — [page](https://film.one/tv/the-night-of.md) - *Westworld* (2016), Fi1m 74, as Elliot — [page](https://film.one/tv/westworld-2016.md) - *A Separation* (2011), Fi1m 93, as Nader — [page](https://film.one/film/a-separation.md) ## Complete filmography (40) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Crime 101* (2026), as Sammy Kassem — Fi1m 67, [page](https://film.one/film/crime-101.md) - *Oh, What Happy Days!* (2025), Actor - *Woman and Child* (2025), as Hamid - *Azaazil* (2025), series, as Major Behrouz Sharifi - *Hard Shell* (2024), as Siamak - *Viper of Tehran* (2024), series, as Arman Bayani · Writer, Creator - *Opponent* (2023), as Iman - *Aporia* (2023), as Jabir - *Parfum* (2023), Actor - *Leila's Brothers* (2022), as Manouchehr - *Like a Fish on the Moon* (2022), Technical Advisor - *Hamid's Symphony* (2022), as Payman - *Night Shift* (2020), as Asomidin Tohirov - *Walnut Tree* (2020), as Qader - *6 Underground* (2019), as Murat Alimov - *Law of Tehran* (2019), as Samad - *Suddenly a Tree* (2019), as Farhad · Producer - *Pig* (2018), as Payman Maadi - *Bomb: A Love Story* (2018), as Iraj · Director, Writer, Producer - *Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming* (2017), as Payman (voice) - *Westworld* (2016), series, as Elliot — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/tv/westworld-2016.md) - *The Night Of* (2016), series, as Salim Khan — Fi1m 81, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-night-of.md) - *Life and a Day* (2016), as Morteza - *13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi* (2016), as Amahl - *Last Knights* (2015), as Emperor - *Camp X-Ray* (2014), as Ali - *Melbourne* (2014), as Amir - *Il était une fois... Une séparation* (2014), Actor - *Tales* (2014), as Taxi Driver - *The Snow on the Pines* (2013), Director, Writer - *Mourning* (2011), as Masoud (voice) - *A Separation* (2011), as Nader — Fi1m 93, [page](https://film.one/film/a-separation.md) - *About Elly* (2009), as Peyman - *Cafe Setareh* (2006), Writer - *Wedding Dinner* (2006), Writer - *Coma* (2004), Writer - *Thirst* (2003), Writer - *Swan Song* (2001), Writer, Costume Design, Production Design - *The Test*, Actor - *Enemies*, Actor ## Gallery - ![Payman Maadi](https://film.one/media/person/7156/gallery-97ff76728ce5.jpg) Payman Maadi — Sajad Sharifzade, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Payman_Maadi_and_Mahnaz_Afshar_20190201_04_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![مهناز افشار، پیمان معادی و صفی یزدانیان در نشست خبری فیلم ناگهان درخت، سی و هفتمین دوره جشنواره فیلم فجر (2019)](https://film.one/media/person/7156/gallery-fb9196e5ca1d.jpg) مهناز افشار، پیمان معادی و صفی یزدانیان در نشست خبری فیلم ناگهان درخت، سی و هفتمین دوره جشنواره فیلم فجر (2019) — Sajad Sharifzade, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Mahnaz_Afshar%2C_Payman_Maadi_and_Safi_Yazdanian_20190201.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![پیمان معادی، مهناز افشار و شقایق دهقان در نشست خبری فیلم ناگهان درخت، سی و هفتمین دوره جشنواره فیلم فجر (2019)](https://film.one/media/person/7156/gallery-00541ec7a86f.jpg) پیمان معادی، مهناز افشار و شقایق دهقان در نشست خبری فیلم ناگهان درخت، سی و هفتمین دوره جشنواره فیلم فجر (2019) — Mohammadreza Abbasi, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Payman_Maadi%2C_Mahnaz_Afshar_and_Shaghayegh_Dehghan_20190201.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Payman Maadi](https://film.one/media/person/7156/gallery-bb88fc5eb3bb.jpg) Payman Maadi — Image via TMDB - ![Payman Maadi](https://film.one/media/person/7156/gallery-47f714349de7.jpg) Payman Maadi — Image via TMDB - ![Payman Maadi](https://film.one/media/person/7156/gallery-c004f7a35424.jpg) Payman Maadi — Image via TMDB --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/payman-maadi