---
name: "Sofia Boutella"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/sofia-boutella"
fi1m_id: "sofia-boutella"
imdb_id: "nm1154749"
tmdb_id: 568657
wikidata_id: "Q258777"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "3 April 1982"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 5
average_fi1m_score: 63
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 5
updated: "2026-10-05T13:37:46.299953+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."
---

# Sofia Boutella

## Identity

Sofia Boutella

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/sofia-boutella
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** sofia-boutella
- **IMDb ID:** nm1154749
- **TMDB ID:** 568657
- **Wikidata ID:** Q258777
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofia_Boutella, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q258777, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1154749/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/568657

Actor. Born 3 April 1982 in Bab El-Oued, Alger, Algérie.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 3 April 1982, Bab El-Oued, Alger, Algérie
- **Active:** 2015–present
- **Also known as:** โซเฟีย โบเทลล่า, סופיה בוטלה, 蘇菲亞・波提拉, صوفیا بوتله, سوفیا بوتلا
- **Frequently works with:** [David Reid](https://film.one/person/david-reid.md), [Matthew Vaughn](https://film.one/person/matthew-vaughn.md)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 63, as actor, over 5 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 2010s 68 (4), 2020s 45 (1)
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 63 to 61 across 5 titles
- **Score spread:** 0 at 80+, 4 at 60–79, 1 under 60
- **Lead roles:** 1 of 5 acting credits billed first or second
- **Genres:** Action 3, Comedy 3, Adventure 2, Crime 1, Drama 1, Horror 1
- **Screen time:** 8 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $856m across 4 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofia_Boutella, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q258777, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1154749/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/568657

## Coming up

- *DreamQuil* (2026-10-29), as Rebecca

## Streaming the US now

- **Apple TV:** [*Star Trek Beyond*](https://film.one/film/star-trek-beyond.md) (70), [*Argylle*](https://film.one/film/argylle.md) (45)
- **The Roku Channel:** [*Climax*](https://film.one/film/climax.md) (73)
- **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Modern Love*](https://film.one/tv/modern-love.md) (61)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Sofia Boutella

> Sofia Boutella acts with her body first, a dancer's habit that makes her the liveliest thing in films that often do not deserve her. Given a wreck to live in, she is good; given a plot function, she vanishes.

Jaylah, the scavenger in *Star Trek Beyond* (2016), lives alone in a crashed ship under white make-up with black markings down her face, and Sofia Boutella plays her as someone who has been on her own long enough to find company tiresome. She is quick, guarded and unimpressed by Starfleet. Sanja Milkovic Hays dresses her in salvaged kit that looks worn rather than designed, and Boutella wears it as if she had done the salvaging herself. Simon Pegg wrote the part as a foil for his own, and she is the freshest thing in the film. She moves through the wreck the way a dancer moves through a room she has rehearsed in, and that is not a coincidence.

Boutella trained in classical dance from the age of five, competed in rhythmic gymnastics for France, went into street dance, and spent six years as a backup dancer for Madonna. Her first acting part of note came in *StreetDance 2* (2012), and the roles that followed were the ones a casting director gives a dancer: Gazelle in *Kingsman: The Secret Service* (2015), Jaylah, Ahmanet in *The Mummy* (2017), Delphine Lasalle in *Atomic Blonde* (2017), Kora in Zack Snyder's two *Rebel Moon* films (2023–2024). Strong, athletic, usually armed. The one that breaks the pattern is *Climax* (2018), for Gaspar Noé, shot without a script in fifteen days, of which she has said: "It's the project I got paid the least for but got so much out of in return, both creatively and artistically." It is not the film that made her name. It is telling that it is the one she talks about.

What works is posture. She can make a character regal or menacing by how she stands before she has said a word, and a fight scene gives her something to do that most actors have to fake. What fails is any film that treats her as a delivery mechanism for plot. In *Argylle* (2024), Matthew Vaughn, who had cast her as Gazelle, gives her Saba Al-Badr, a part that arrives when the story requires it and leaves when the story is done with it. We were cross watching that, and crosser because we could see, from Jaylah, what she might have done with ten minutes and a corridor. This has become the shape of her career: the bigger films she appears in have been received poorly, *Rebel Moon* among them, and the notices tend to pick her out as the part that worked.

The recommendation is *Star Trek Beyond*, where Justin Lin strands the crew on a rock and Boutella gets to be the local who knows the ground. The hope is that somebody with a small budget and no franchise asks her to do again what Noé did. She has said she never expected to end up in big commercial films. The big commercial films, so far, have not worked out what to do with her either.

## Biography

Sofia Boutella is an Algerian actress, dancer and model. She was born on 3 April 1982 in the Bab El Oued district of Algiers, Algeria, to a jazz musician father, Safy Boutella, and an architect mother. In 1992, at the age of 10, she moved with her family to France amid the Algerian Civil War. She trained in classical dance from the age of five and later joined the French national rhythmic gymnastics team at 18. She began hip-hop and street dance, performing with groups including the Vagabond Crew, and worked as a dancer for Madonna.

Boutella made her acting breakthrough in *StreetDance 2* (2012). She is known for roles including Gazelle in *Kingsman: The Secret Service* (2015), Jaylah in *Star Trek Beyond* (2016), Ahmanet in *The Mummy* (2017), Delphine Lasalle in *Atomic Blonde* (2017), Selva in *Climax* (2018), and Nice in *Hotel Artemis* (2018). She has also appeared in *Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities* (2022).

More recent credits include Kora / Arthelais in *Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire* (2023) and its sequel (2024), and Saba Al-Badr in *Argylle* (2024).

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, nytimes.com.*

## On Fi1m (5)

- *Argylle* (2024), Fi1m 45, as Saba Al-Badr — [page](https://film.one/film/argylle.md)
- *Modern Love* (2019), Fi1m 61, as Yasmine — [page](https://film.one/tv/modern-love.md)
- *Climax* (2018), Fi1m 73, as Selva — [page](https://film.one/film/climax.md)
- *Star Trek Beyond* (2016), Fi1m 70, as Jaylah — [page](https://film.one/film/star-trek-beyond.md)
- *Kingsman: The Secret Service* (2015), Fi1m 66, as Gazelle — [page](https://film.one/film/kingsman-the-secret-service.md)

## Complete filmography (33)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *DreamQuil* (2026), as Rebecca
- *The Basics of Philosophy* (2026), as Rebecca Richards
- *Only What We Carry* (2026), as Charlotte Levant
- *The Killer's Game* (2024), as Maize Arnaud
- *Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver* (2024), as Kora / Arthelais
- *Argylle* (2024), as Saba Al-Badr — Fi1m 45, [page](https://film.one/film/argylle.md)
- *Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire* (2023), as Kora / Arthelais
- *SAS Rogue Heroes* (2022), series, as Eve Mansour
- *Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities* (2022), series, as Dr. Zahra
- *Prisoners of the Ghostland* (2021), as Bernice
- *Settlers* (2021), as Ilsa
- *Modern Love* (2019), series, as Yasmine — Fi1m 61, [page](https://film.one/tv/modern-love.md)
- *Climax* (2018), as Selva — Fi1m 73, [page](https://film.one/film/climax.md)
- *Hotel Artemis* (2018), as Nice
- *Fahrenheit 451* (2018), as Clarisse McClellan
- *The Mummy: Ahmanet Reborn* (2017), as Ahmanet
- *Atomic Blonde* (2017), as Delphine Lasalle
- *The Mummy* (2017), as Ahmanet
- *Tiger Raid* (2016), as Shadha
- *Star Trek Beyond* (2016), as Jaylah — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/film/star-trek-beyond.md)
- *Jet Trash* (2016), as Vix
- *Kingsman: The Secret Service* (2015), as Gazelle — Fi1m 66, [page](https://film.one/film/kingsman-the-secret-service.md)
- *Monsters: Dark Continent* (2014), as Ara
- *StreetDance 2* (2012), as Eva
- *Lindsay's Private Party* (2009), as Sofia
- *Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest* (2006), as La Fée des elfes (voice)
- *Madonna: ‘Confessions…..On a promo tour’* (2005), as Dancer
- *Permis d'aimer* (2005), as Lila
- *Dance Challenge* (2002), as Samia
- *Tangled Up in Blue*, Actor
- *Tower Stories*, Actor
- *Yeti*, Actor
- *Moral Capacity*, as Andrea

## Gallery

- ![Sofia Boutella](https://film.one/media/person/604/gallery-2964bc4ede60.jpg) Sofia Boutella — Eva Rinaldi, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Sofia_Boutella_%2834705024651%29.jpg/1280px-Sofia_Boutella_%2834705024651%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Colin Firth and Sofia Boutella speaking at the 2014 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Kingsman: The Secret Service", at the San Diego Convention Center in](https://film.one/media/person/604/gallery-1c5616759d5b.jpg) Colin Firth and Sofia Boutella speaking at the 2014 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Kingsman: The Secret Service", at the San Diego Convention Center in — Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/78/2014_San_Diego_Comic_Con_-_Colin_Firth_%26_Sofia_Boutella_-_1.jpg/1280px-2014_San_Diego_Comic_Con_-_Colin_Firth_%26_Sofia_Boutella_-_1.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Sofia Boutella speaking at the 2014 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Kingsman: The Secret Service", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, Cali](https://film.one/media/person/604/gallery-569ab931bdde.jpg) Sofia Boutella speaking at the 2014 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Kingsman: The Secret Service", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, Cali — Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/2014_San_Diego_Comic_Con_-_Sofia_Boutella_-_1.jpg/1280px-2014_San_Diego_Comic_Con_-_Sofia_Boutella_-_1.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Sofia Boutella speaking at the 2014 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Kingsman: The Secret Service", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, Cali](https://film.one/media/person/604/gallery-400cd730f68a.jpg) Sofia Boutella speaking at the 2014 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Kingsman: The Secret Service", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, Cali — Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7d/2014_San_Diego_Comic_Con_-_Sofia_Boutella_-_2.jpg/1280px-2014_San_Diego_Comic_Con_-_Sofia_Boutella_-_2.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Sofia Boutella](https://film.one/media/person/604/gallery-058c07cc0dd0.jpg) Sofia Boutella — Image via TMDB
- ![Sofia Boutella](https://film.one/media/person/604/gallery-5732652a1d93.jpg) Sofia Boutella — Image via TMDB
- ![Sofia Boutella](https://film.one/media/person/604/gallery-8e1ae30bfac4.jpg) Sofia Boutella — Image via TMDB
- ![Sophie Cookson, Colin Firth, Sofia Boutella, Samuel L. Jackson and Taron Egerton speaking at the 2014 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Kingsman: The Secr](https://film.one/media/person/604/gallery-d6e5a6ca9916.jpg) Sophie Cookson, Colin Firth, Sofia Boutella, Samuel L. Jackson and Taron Egerton speaking at the 2014 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Kingsman: The Secr — Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/2014_San_Diego_Comic_Con_-_Sophie_Cookson%2C_Colin_Firth%2C_Sofia_Boutella%2C_Samuel_L._Jackson_%26_Taron_Egerton.jpg/1280px-2014_San_Diego_Comic_Con_-_Sophie_Cookson%2C_Colin_Firth%2C_Sofia_Boutella%2C_Samuel_L._Jackson_%26_Taron_Egerton.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Alex Kurtzman, Sofia Boutella, Tom Cruise, Annabelle Wallis, Russell Crowe (2017)](https://film.one/media/person/604/gallery-dea8eb73c489.jpg) Alex Kurtzman, Sofia Boutella, Tom Cruise, Annabelle Wallis, Russell Crowe (2017) — Eva Rinaldi, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Alex_Kurtzman%2C_Sofia_Boutella%2C_Tom_Cruise%2C_Annabelle_Wallis%2C_Russell_Crowe_%2834435877860%29.jpg/1280px-Alex_Kurtzman%2C_Sofia_Boutella%2C_Tom_Cruise%2C_Annabelle_Wallis%2C_Russell_Crowe_%2834435877860%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Sofia Boutella](https://film.one/media/person/604/gallery-442a7ec056a2.jpg) Sofia Boutella — Image via TMDB
- ![Sofia Boutella](https://film.one/media/person/604/gallery-2f9db3874e21.jpg) Sofia Boutella — Image via TMDB
- ![Sofia Boutella](https://film.one/media/person/604/gallery-7130de03e5c2.jpg) Sofia Boutella — 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/sofia-boutella