Khalid Abdalla | |
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Born | Glasgow, Scotland, | 26 October 1980
Education | King's College School |
Alma mater | Queens' College, Cambridge |
Occupations |
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Years active | 1998–present |
Spouse |
Cressida Trew (m. 2011) |
Khalid Abdalla (Arabic: خالد عبد الله, romanized: Khālid ‘Abd Allāh; born 26 October 1980) is a British actor and activist. He came to international prominence after starring in the 2006 Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA-winning film United 93. Written and directed by Paul Greengrass, it chronicles events aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked as part of the 11 September attacks. Abdalla played Ziad Jarrah, the pilot and leader of the four hijackers on board the flight.
Abdalla starred as Amir in The Kite Runner (2007) and acted with Matt Damon in Green Zone (2010), his second film with director Paul Greengrass. Abdalla appears as himself in Jehane Noujaim's documentary on the 2011 Egyptian revolution, The Square, which won the Audience Award at Sundance Festival in 2013.[1][2] In 2022 and 2023, he starred as Dodi Fayed in seasons 5 and 6 of the historical drama series The Crown, for which he received a Critics' Choice Television Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.
Abdalla is on the board of the National Student Drama Festival. In 2011, he became one of the founding members of the Mosireen ("We Insist") Collective in Cairo: a group of revolutionary filmmakers and activists dedicated to supporting citizen media across Egypt in the wake of Hosni Mubarak's fall.[3] Three months after it began, Mosireen became the most watched non-profit YouTube channel in Egypt of all time, and in the whole world in January 2012.[4]