# Mehdi Nebbou

Mehdi Nebbou (born 10 January 1971) is a French actor.

## Early life and education

Mehdi Nebbou was born on 10 January 1974 in Bayonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, to a German mother and an Algerian father. His brother is the film director Safy Nebbou.

## Career

He started his career by appearing in the film My Sweet Home, directed by Filipos Tsitos.
In 2004, the director Samir Nasr offered him the leading role in the film Seeds of Doubt, which won the Golden Gate Award for best film at the San Francisco Film Festival. 2005 was a turning point in Nebbou's career thanks to the film Schläfer by German film director Benjamin Heisenberg. The film received excellent reviews and was selected for the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.
In 2006, he portrayed Ali Hassan Salameh in the Steven Spielberg blockbuster film Munich.
In 2007, for his performance in Teresas Zimmer, directed by German film director Constanze Knoche, he won the award for best actor at First Steps Awards.
In 2008, Nebbou worked in the Ridley Scott film Body of Lies with Leonardo DiCaprio. In it, he portrayed Nizar, an Iraqi linguistics doctorate turned Al-Qaeda operative who approaches CIA to defect after being enlisted by his jihadist superiors for suicide bombing. In addition, he played in several French TV series and films, among them as a disabled ex-middleweight boxing world champion in Douce France for which he won the award for best actor in 2009 at the Rochelle TV Festival. He played Mustafa Larbi, a sadistic and unpredictable drug dealer, in season 2 of Spiral, the successful Canal+ TV series.
In 2010, he portrayed Bruno in the Salvatore Allocca Italian romantic comedy Come trovare nel modo giusto l'uomo sbagliato and in 2011, Amin in the French action film Forces spéciales with Diane Krüger.
In 2012, he had his breakthrough into the Indian film industry thanks to the film English Vinglish, starring Sridevi.
He portrayed the lead in Les heures souterraines, directed by Philippe Harel and inspired by the novel of Delphine de Vigan in 2014.
In 2015 and 2016, he played Cyclone in six episodes of season 1 and 2 of Le Bureau des Légendes. Also In 2016, he was the co-lead in the Romanian movie The Fixer directed by Adrian Sitaru, about human traffic in Europe and under-age prostitution.
In 2017, he played a lead role in the second season of the Norwegian series Occupied and in the German series Deutschland 86.
He stars the Netflix series Baby (2018) directed by Andrea De Sica and Anna Negri.
In 2021, he played a middile-east investor in the movie "House of Gucci" by Ridley Scott.

## Personal life

Mehdi is fluent in French, German, English,Hindi and Italian

## Filmography

| Year | Title | Role | Director | Notes |
| 1998 | Spiel des Tages | Soldier | Damir Lukacevic | Short |
| 2001 | My Sweet Home | Hakim | Filippos Tsitos | |
| 2002 | Lovers & Friends | Arnaud | Christoph Schrewe | TV movie |
| 2002 | Achterbahn | Habib | Klaus Krämer | TV series (1 episode) |
| 2004 | Manson's Dream | Karim | Florian Scheibe | Short |
| 2004 | Folgeschäden | Tariq Slimani | Samir Nasr | TV movie |
| 2005 | Munich | Ali Hassan Salameh | Steven Spielberg | Central Ohio Film Critics Association - Best Ensemble Nominated - Online Film & Television Association - Best Ensemble |
| 2005 | Sleeper | Farid Atabay | Benjamin Heisenberg | |
| 2005 | Vier Frauen und ein Todesfall | Ahmet | Harald Sicheritz | TV series (1 episode) |
| 2006 | Running on Empty | Rachid | Bülent Akinci | |
| 2006 | Fay Grim | Islamic Cleric | Hal Hartley | |
| 2006 | 2 Floors Down... | Maximilian | Mindi Lee | Short |
| 2006 | Teresas Zimmer | Bilal | Constanze Knoche | TV Short First Steps Awards - Best Actor |
| 2006 | Verschleppt - Kein Weg zurück | Tarik Al-Samirai | Hansjörg Thurn | TV movie |
| 2007 | Paris Lockdown | Hicham | Frédéric Schoendoerffer | |
| 2007 | Faits divers | Daniel | Bill Barluet | Short |
| 2007 | GSG 9 – Ihr Einsatz ist ihr Leben | Ishan Hamsa | Hans-Günther Bücking | TV series (1 episode) |
| 2007 | Tatort | Ali | Peter Fratzscher | TV series (1 episode) |
| 2008 | Mark of an Angel | The Policeman | Safy Nebbou | |
| 2008 | Body of Lies | Nizar | Ridley Scott | |
| 2008 | Secret Defense | Ahmed | Philippe Haïm | |
| 2008 | Ca$h | Vincent | Éric Besnard | |
| 2008 | Berlin Calling | Jamal the Junk | Hannes Stöhr | |
| 2008 | Les liens du sang | José Lazaga | Jacques Maillot | |
| 2008 | Long Shadows | Talat | Connie Walter | |
| 2008 | Spiral | Mustapha Larbi | Philippe Venault & Philippe Triboit | TV series (4 Episode) |
| 2009 | Magma | Paul Neville | Pierre Vinour | |
| 2009 | Le choix de Myriam | Kader | Malik Chibane | TV movie Luchon International Film Festival - Best Young Actor |
| 2009 | Douce France | Abdel Chaouche | Stéphane Giusti | TV movie |
| 2010 | Zeiten ändern dich | | Uli Edel | |
| 2010 | 8:28 AM [fr] | Alexander Frey | Christian Alvart | |
| 2010 | 600 kilos d'or pur | Norris | Éric Besnard (2) | |
| 2010 | The Coming Days | Vincent | Lars Kraume | |
| 2010 | By Night | Martin | Juan Diaz Bohorquez. | Short |
| 2010 | Tatort | Hassan Adub | Jobst Oetzmann | TV series (1 episode) |
| 2011 | Forces spéciales | Amen | Stéphane Rybojad | |
| 2011 | Switch | Stéphane Defer | Frédéric Schoendoerffer (2) | |
| 2011 | Come trovare nel modo giusto l'uomo sbagliato | Bruno | Salvatore Allocca & Daniela Cursi Masella | |
| 2011 | Unter Verdacht | Hamid Sherzad | Andreas Herzog | TV series (1 episode) |
| 2012 | English Vinglish | Laurent | Gauri Shinde | Bollywood Movie |
| 2012 | Mince alors! | Doctor Hachemi | Charlotte de Turckheim | |
| 2012 | Die feinen Unterschiede | Herr Thalberg | Sylvie Michel | |
| 2012 | Die Besucher | Studienberater | Constanze Knoche (2) | |
| 2012 | Rue Mandar | Simon | Idit Cebula | |
| 2012 | Zappelphilipp | Sebastian Sander | Connie Walter (2) | TV movie |
| 2012 | Die Chefin | Cristian Farron | Michael Schneider | TV series (1 episode) |
| 2013 | 11.6 | Monaco | Philippe Godeau | |
| 2013 | Joséphine | Gilles | Agnès Obadia | |
| 2013 | Cookie | Mathieu | Léa Fazer | |
| 2013 | Back on Track | Gerome | Kilian Riedhof | |
| 2013 | Hasta mañana | David | Sébastien Maggiani & Olivier Vidal | |
| 2013 | Mein Mann, ein Mörder [de] | Arie van Doorn | Lancelot von Naso | TV movie |
| 2013 | Vogue la vie | | Claire de la Rochefoucauld | TV movie |
| 2013 | Inga Lindström | Paul Andersson | Udo Witte | TV series (1 episode) |
| 2014 | Vivre Berlin | Pierre | Nehra Stella | Short |
| 2014 | Witnesses | Eric | Hervé Hadmar | TV mini-series |
| 2015 | We Monsters | Paul | Sebastian Ko | |
| 2015 | Happy Hour | Nic | Franz Müller | |
| 2015 | Les heures souterraines | Thibault | Philippe Harel | TV movie |
| 2015 | Paare | Patient | Johann Buchholz | TV series short |
| 2015 | Le Bureau des Légendes | Cyclone | Éric Rochant & Laïla Marrakchi | TV series (3 episodes) |
| 2015 | Hard | Rémi Capelle | Laurent Dussaux & Melissa Drigeard | TV series (9 episodes) |
| 2015 | Homeland | Hussein | Alex Gansa & Gideon Raff & Howard Gordon | TV series (12 episodes) |
| 2016 | Joséphine s'arrondit | Gilles | Marilou Berry | |
| 2016 | Fixeur | | Adrian Sitaru | |
| 2017 | Animals | Tarek | | |
| 2018 | Mothers' Instinct | Simon Brunelle | Olivier Masset-Depasse | |
| 2018 | Deutschland 86 | Jean-Luc | | TV series (2 episodes) |
| 2021 | House of Gucci | Said | Ridley Scott | |
| 2021 | HPI | Adam Karadec | Stéphane Carrié & Alice Chegaray-Breugnot & Nicolas Jean | TV series (16 episodes) |
| 2025 | No Beast. So Fierce. | Imad York | Burhan Qurbani | Selected at the Berlinale, premiere in February 2025 and release in theaters on 8 May 2025. |