Please Rewind Talent Wall

Bahar Soomekh

Bahar Soomekh is a Mexican-born Iranian American actor whose screen career took shape through tense dramas, large-scale thrillers and horror. Born in Veracruz on March 30, 1975, she moved with her parents and sister to Los Angeles in 1979 during the Iranian Revolution. She attended Sinai Akiba Academy and Beverly Hills High School before earning a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1997. Acting did not immediately become her full-time profession. After college, Soomekh worked in motivational sales while taking acting classes, then began appearing as a guest performer on television shows including JAG and 24. Once she left her day job to concentrate on acting, the change came quickly: less than three months later, she secured the role of Dorri in Crash. That part became her breakthrough when Crash went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Soomekh followed it with roles in Syriana and Mission: Impossible III, placing her in a run of ambitious, high-pressure studio films. In 2006, she moved into horror with a leading role as Dr. Lynn Denlon in Saw III, playing a doctor forced into the machinery of the series’ brutal moral tests. Her television work continued alongside those films. Soomekh had a recurring role as Margo in Day Break and made guest appearances on Ghost Whisperer and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Her last film role came in Just Like a Woman, released in 2012. Soomekh’s filmography is relatively compact, but it includes several of the most widely discussed dramas, thrillers and horror releases of the mid-2000s. After her screen career, she pursued work in real estate with a focus on upscale housing, marking a distinct second chapter beyond acting.