Reza Diako
- Actor
- Producer
Reza Diako is a British actor of Austrian nationality and Persian-Jewish heritage, based between London and New York and working across the UK, US and Europe. He stars as Apostle Philip in the internationally acclaimed television series The Chosen (2017). A global phenomenon with an audience of more than 400 million viewers worldwide and the number one most translated television series in the world. Diako joined the series in its fourth season and continues in the role through its seventh season. Season 5, The Last Supper, further expanded the series’ international reach with a global theatrical release across international markets.
On screen, Reza’s recent work includes The Astronaut (2025), alongside Kate Mara and Laurence Fishburne, in which he portrays ‘Dr. Ethan Marshall’, a director at NASA; and Reading Lolita in Tehran (2024), alongside award-winning Golshifteh Farahani and Zar Amir Ebrahimi. Based on Azar Nafisi’s internationally acclaimed memoir, the film sees Reza portray ‘Bahri’, an intellectual literature student caught between his role as a leading member of the Islamic student society at Allameh Tabataba’i University in Tehran and his deep love and respect for literature and his professor, Azar Nafisi (Golshifteh Farahani), against the backdrop of the early years following the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. The film premiered at the Rome Film Festival, where it won two awards, and had success at international festivals including the Palm Springs International Film Festival, and a strong US cinematic release run.
Reza also appears in Channel 4’s THE SIEGE, directed by Lewis Arnold, starring opposite Danny Dyer and David Morrissey. The drama tells the story of the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in London.
Reza was born in Geneva, Switzerland to Iranian parents, one a painter and the other a businessman. When he was five, he moved to Tehran, Iran with his mother and older sister. Here, he learned to read and write in Farsi (the Persian language), while attending several public and private schools. At the age of twelve, the family moved to Vienna, Austria, attending an American Christian school there. After three years, Reza moved and settled in London, U.K, attending a Jewish International School. In total, he unusually attended ten schools during these years. At the age of 18, he attended Queen Mary University, London to study Psychology, King’s College to study Clinical Mental Health, Bristol University to study two years of Medicine, and Birkbeck, University of London to study Psychoanalytic and Jungian Developmental Psychology.
This diverse personal and educational experience exposed Reza to a myriad of cultures, ideas, and backgrounds at an early age, shaping the foundation for his acting and project choices. Fluent in multiple languages, his international upbringing has also given him a particular facility with accents and dialects, allowing him to work across British, American and international roles.
Reza began acting in leading roles in school theatre productions and, in 2014, began formal acting training across London while appearing in independent theatre and film projects. In 2017, he performed as part of an international cast in The Phoenix & the Crow at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
He subsequently trained across a range of classical and contemporary approaches, including at the Identity School of Acting; in Yat Malmgren Character Analysis at the Giles Foreman Centre for Acting; in Method Acting at the London School of Method Acting; and in the Meisner technique at the Impulse Company. He also trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York, and has continued his training at HB Studio, the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, and with Ivana Chubbuck at The Chubbuck Studio.
In 2018, Reza was cast as ‘Harry Razavi’ in Transparent (2018), a feature film exploring homelessness in Central London. He subsequently played the lead role of ‘Misha’ in Tummyache (2022), portraying a formerly famous child actor struggling with addiction; his performance earned him two Best Actor awards and a Best Lead Actor nomination, while the film went on to receive several festival awards. On stage, he played ‘Eli’ in Son of Man, a production reflecting on the adolescence of Jesus Christ, and later appeared in Fatherless Son, a drama exploring gang violence on the streets of London.
Reza subsequently moved into international television and film, appearing as series regular ‘Shahin’ across both seasons of Apple TV’s International Emmy Award-winning drama Tehran (2020). He played ‘Henri’ in ITV’s A Spy Among Friends (2022), and appeared in the BBC series Around the World in 80 Days (2021) and in The Son (2022), directed by Florian Zeller.
Reza later appeared as ‘Hamid’ in The Persian Version (2023), winner of the Audience Award and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. He also played series regular ‘Zak’ in the second season of HBO Max and Sky Atlantic’s I Hate Suzie (2020), and series regular ‘Aslan’ in MBC1 and Shahid’s London Class (2023), which follows an Iranian family close to the Shah who are forced to seek refuge in London following the Iranian Revolution. His television work also includes ‘Haadee’ in The Covenant (2023) and ‘Basir’ in the Netflix drama The Diplomat (2023).
Alongside acting, Reza has maintained a longstanding commitment to psychology, mental health and the study of human behaviour. He has worked for many years with young people with autism and with people experiencing suicidal crises, and has built years of experience across mental and physical healthcare in both hospital and community settings, including work with people experiencing complex psychosis, clinical hospital wards, refugees and political prisoners, people struggling with learning disabilities, homelessness, and other health difficulties.
Beyond acting, his wider creative and physical interests include music, singing and songwriting, piano and saxophone, ballroom and contemporary dance, and extensive physical, fitness, martial arts and military combat training.
His academic and personal interests extend to C.G. Jung, psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche and the wider study of philosophy and human nature. This background continues to inform his approach to acting, particularly his interest in transformative, psychologically complex characters and emotionally grounded, human-centred storytelling.
Reza has long held the ambition of one day establishing a therapeutic centre for children and young people alongside his work as an actor. His guiding aspiration is to leave the world with a little more truth and a little more love.
On screen, Reza’s recent work includes The Astronaut (2025), alongside Kate Mara and Laurence Fishburne, in which he portrays ‘Dr. Ethan Marshall’, a director at NASA; and Reading Lolita in Tehran (2024), alongside award-winning Golshifteh Farahani and Zar Amir Ebrahimi. Based on Azar Nafisi’s internationally acclaimed memoir, the film sees Reza portray ‘Bahri’, an intellectual literature student caught between his role as a leading member of the Islamic student society at Allameh Tabataba’i University in Tehran and his deep love and respect for literature and his professor, Azar Nafisi (Golshifteh Farahani), against the backdrop of the early years following the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. The film premiered at the Rome Film Festival, where it won two awards, and had success at international festivals including the Palm Springs International Film Festival, and a strong US cinematic release run.
Reza also appears in Channel 4’s THE SIEGE, directed by Lewis Arnold, starring opposite Danny Dyer and David Morrissey. The drama tells the story of the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in London.
Reza was born in Geneva, Switzerland to Iranian parents, one a painter and the other a businessman. When he was five, he moved to Tehran, Iran with his mother and older sister. Here, he learned to read and write in Farsi (the Persian language), while attending several public and private schools. At the age of twelve, the family moved to Vienna, Austria, attending an American Christian school there. After three years, Reza moved and settled in London, U.K, attending a Jewish International School. In total, he unusually attended ten schools during these years. At the age of 18, he attended Queen Mary University, London to study Psychology, King’s College to study Clinical Mental Health, Bristol University to study two years of Medicine, and Birkbeck, University of London to study Psychoanalytic and Jungian Developmental Psychology.
This diverse personal and educational experience exposed Reza to a myriad of cultures, ideas, and backgrounds at an early age, shaping the foundation for his acting and project choices. Fluent in multiple languages, his international upbringing has also given him a particular facility with accents and dialects, allowing him to work across British, American and international roles.
Reza began acting in leading roles in school theatre productions and, in 2014, began formal acting training across London while appearing in independent theatre and film projects. In 2017, he performed as part of an international cast in The Phoenix & the Crow at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
He subsequently trained across a range of classical and contemporary approaches, including at the Identity School of Acting; in Yat Malmgren Character Analysis at the Giles Foreman Centre for Acting; in Method Acting at the London School of Method Acting; and in the Meisner technique at the Impulse Company. He also trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York, and has continued his training at HB Studio, the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, and with Ivana Chubbuck at The Chubbuck Studio.
In 2018, Reza was cast as ‘Harry Razavi’ in Transparent (2018), a feature film exploring homelessness in Central London. He subsequently played the lead role of ‘Misha’ in Tummyache (2022), portraying a formerly famous child actor struggling with addiction; his performance earned him two Best Actor awards and a Best Lead Actor nomination, while the film went on to receive several festival awards. On stage, he played ‘Eli’ in Son of Man, a production reflecting on the adolescence of Jesus Christ, and later appeared in Fatherless Son, a drama exploring gang violence on the streets of London.
Reza subsequently moved into international television and film, appearing as series regular ‘Shahin’ across both seasons of Apple TV’s International Emmy Award-winning drama Tehran (2020). He played ‘Henri’ in ITV’s A Spy Among Friends (2022), and appeared in the BBC series Around the World in 80 Days (2021) and in The Son (2022), directed by Florian Zeller.
Reza later appeared as ‘Hamid’ in The Persian Version (2023), winner of the Audience Award and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. He also played series regular ‘Zak’ in the second season of HBO Max and Sky Atlantic’s I Hate Suzie (2020), and series regular ‘Aslan’ in MBC1 and Shahid’s London Class (2023), which follows an Iranian family close to the Shah who are forced to seek refuge in London following the Iranian Revolution. His television work also includes ‘Haadee’ in The Covenant (2023) and ‘Basir’ in the Netflix drama The Diplomat (2023).
Alongside acting, Reza has maintained a longstanding commitment to psychology, mental health and the study of human behaviour. He has worked for many years with young people with autism and with people experiencing suicidal crises, and has built years of experience across mental and physical healthcare in both hospital and community settings, including work with people experiencing complex psychosis, clinical hospital wards, refugees and political prisoners, people struggling with learning disabilities, homelessness, and other health difficulties.
Beyond acting, his wider creative and physical interests include music, singing and songwriting, piano and saxophone, ballroom and contemporary dance, and extensive physical, fitness, martial arts and military combat training.
His academic and personal interests extend to C.G. Jung, psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche and the wider study of philosophy and human nature. This background continues to inform his approach to acting, particularly his interest in transformative, psychologically complex characters and emotionally grounded, human-centred storytelling.
Reza has long held the ambition of one day establishing a therapeutic centre for children and young people alongside his work as an actor. His guiding aspiration is to leave the world with a little more truth and a little more love.
