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Actor Homayoun Ershadi debuted onscreen in the late '90s, and spent the majority of his first decade as a film actor tackling assignments -- mostly lead roles -- in his native Iran. In that sphere, Ershadi worked for some of the most acclaimed of all contemporary Persian directors, including Abbas Kiarostami (The Taste of Cherry), Dariush Mehrjui (Derakht-E Golabi), and Ramin Mohseini (Az Dourdast). Ershadi gained particularly widespread acclaim for the deliberate and elliptical Cherry, in which he portrays a despondent middle-aged man on a cross-country suicide mission. The actor then signed on to portray Baba, a loving father to a young Afghani boy, in Marc Forster's critically acclaimed drama The Kite Runner (2007), adapted from the novel by Khaled Hosseini.