Marjan Neshat: 'I went to drama school so I could play anything, not to play myself'

Born in Iran, Neshat moved with her family first to London, then back to Iran before settling in the United States, moving back and forth between learning English and Farsi in her early years. Describing herself as a hypersensitive kid who lived in books (Anne of Green Gables was a particular favourite), she says the discovery of theatre in school was a revelation.

“It was a craft,” she says. “Lines into other people. It was the first time I had not felt lonely and on the outside of something, which gave me a big boost of courage. There was a way to use all these sensitivities towards something.”

Neshat says that when she attended drama school and began going out for roles after graduating, it was a different time than it is now for actors born overseas with a foreign-sounding name. She says: “I’m not dark enough to be fairly ethnic and not light enough to just be white. I think that I’ve fallen between. They don’t quite know what to do with you. When I came out of school, there wasn’t this openness. A lot of casting directors were like: ‘Oh, you should have changed your name.’ ”

‘Nuance and subtlety are not things I’ve seen a lot of in plays set in the Middle East’

She continues: “It’s started to change and I think it’s still changing, There’s a real lack of understanding, or real unity of thought, as to what diversity is. I’ve done a bunch of TV and film, but I do think that when they look at diversity, the conversation is still very rudimentary.”

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In her first high-profile production in New York, Neshat was cast in The Seagull at Classic Stage Company, in a company that included Dianne Wiest and Alan Cumming. In 2017, Neshat was among the conspirators who brought down the title character in Julius Caesar in a production at New York’s Public Theater that drew significant attention over its depiction of the emperor as Trump-like.

Of the resulting uproar, Neshat recalls: “There was a real energy going to the theatre every night. We had to have guards, we had to be protected. Doing this piece, the act of it became a political act, which is not what I thought it was going to be when I said yes to doing it. It really heightened this idea of what art can do and stir up.”

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Q&A Marjan Neshat

What was your first non-theatre job?
I worked at a video store and a German deli.

Your first professional theatre job?
The Golden Ladder (Off-Broadway).

What do you wish someone had told you when you were starting out? 
The degree to which acting is a business.

Who or what was your biggest influence?
There are actors I deeply admire. One of my favourite actresses is Juliette Binoche.

What’s your best advice for auditions? 
Work really hard. The only thing you can do to protect yourself is to come out of that room and feel like you did your best with it.

If you hadn’t been an actor and director, what would you have been? 
A psychologist.

Do you have any theatrical superstitions? 
I never come to the theatre without my script even if I know it backwards and forwards. I always carry it around.

With the run of plays that began last November with Selling Kabul at Playwrights Horizons, Neshat says: “It’s been the most artistically fulfilling year of my life. I feel profoundly lucky to have found these playwrights.”

Selling Kabul is by Sylvia Khoury, while both English and Wish You Were Here are by Sanaz Toossi. The first was set in Afghanistan, while the latter two took place in Iran.

Neshat was deeply appreciative of the opportunity to play real characters in those settings, as opposed to, as she says, characterising some of her film and TV work, playing “crying Muslims”. Of Selling Kabul, Neshat says: “Doing [that] a couple of months after the withdrawal from Afghanistan and what was happening [there] was so heartbreaking and meaningful, but [it was something] that I really, really appreciate; what I’ve always sought out and fought for as an actor.”

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“If you constantly show people in one light,” she continues, “you don’t get the whole picture. In Iran right now, it’s the women who are on the streets fighting. I think for so long, everyone looked at them as ‘under the veil’, this exotification. Nuance and subtlety, the colours of those plays, are not things I’ve seen a lot of when people try to do plays set in the Middle East.”

“Especially in Wish You Were Here,” Neshat recalls, of the story of women’s friendship over the course of a decade, “I had mothers and daughters every night weeping, saying to me: ‘We’ve never seen ourselves on stage, we’ve never seen our stories reflected.’ ”

After the Middle Eastern trio, which brought her to Cale’s attention for Sandra, Neshat isn’t playing any identified ethnicity in his play. While she says she’s very proud of the three roles she played previously, “If you’re an artist, you should get a chance to be in conversation with what moves you,” states Neshat. “I love David’s play and I think he doesn’t look at me and go: ‘Oh, well, I’ve diversified.’ He just thought: ‘You are the right person for this role.’ ”

“I went to drama school so I could play anything that was my interest. I didn’t go to drama school to play myself.”

CV Marjan Neshat

Born: Tehran, Iran, 1976
Training: Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre at Purchase College, New York
Landmark productions: 
• The Seagull, Classic Stage Company (2008)
• Julius Caesar, Public Theater (2017)
• Joan, Colt Coeur (2019)
• Selling Kabul, Playwrights Horizons (2021)
• English, Atlantic Theater Company (2022)
• Wish You Were Here, Playwrights Horizons (2022)
• Sandra, Vineyard Theatre (2022)
Awards: 
• Drama Desk Sam Norkin Off-Broadway Award for Selling Kabul and English, 2022
Agent: Cornerstone Talent Agency

Sandra runs at Vineyard Theatre, New York, until December 18. Visit vineyardtheatre.org for full details