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Homayoun Ershadi
| Photo Credit: AFP
Iran’s state news agency IRNA confirmed that Ershadi passed away on November 11 following a battle with cancer. Tributes have poured in from the global film community, remembering him as one of Iran’s most quietly powerful screen presences.
Born in Isfahan in 1947, Ershadi’s path to cinema was anything but conventional. Trained as an architect, he worked for over a decade in Vancouver before returning to Tehran, where a fateful encounter at a red light changed his life. Abbas Kiarostami, then preparing to shoot Taste of Cherry, famously tapped on Ershadi’s car window and asked, “Would you like to be in my film?”
Their collaboration became one of Iranian cinema’s most iconic moments. In Taste of Cherry (1997), which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Ershadi played a man calmly searching for someone to bury him after his planned suicide in a role that showcased his remarkable stillness and emotional depth.
The film’s success catapulted Ershadi into international recognition, leading to a prolific late-blooming career spanning more than 90 screen credits. Western audiences came to know him best as Baba, the dignified father in Marc Forster’s The Kite Runner (2007), based on Khaled Hosseini’s bestselling novel.
Ershadi also appeared in Agora (2009) by Alejandro Amenábar, Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty (2012), and Hassan Nazer’s Utopia (2015). In Iran, he continued to work steadily in both independent and mainstream films, including Lelah, Mahoor, and the upcoming The Hill of Kites.
Though rumored to have been cast in Terrence Malick’s The Way of the Wind, the project was never confirmed. Ershadi’s passing marks the loss of one of Iran’s most soulful cinematic voices.
Published – November 12, 2025 11:46 am IST
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Homayoun Ershadi, star of ‘Taste of Cherry’ and ‘The Kite Runner’, dies at 78
