Sam Asghari has wrapped his starring role in the action thriller short, “The Good American.”
Asghari stars as Ben, an Iranian refugee and rideshare driver in Los Angeles who becomes entangled in a criminal underground when a passenger (Max Reeves) asks him to help save her twin sister (also played by Reeves) from a human trafficking ring run by Russian mobsters.
Director and co-writer Alex Fazeli says the film’s immigrant themes were inspired by a New York Times story about Iranian American citizens being detained at the US-Canada border after a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3, 2020.
“I know what it feels like to not have a home, to search for one, to finally belong,” Fazeli, who became a U.S. citizen after his family moved him from Iran to southern California when he was 12 years old, said in a statement. “I have never once questioned whether I am American. Not once. I know what I believe in, what I stand for, what I sacrificed to be here. Then a border agent opens my passport — and in that second, none of it counts. Being a good American was never about your values. It’s about where you were born.”
Asghari’s family moved him from Iran when he was 12 years old to live in Los Angeles with an uncle.
He recently spoke to me at the Human Rights Campaign gala in Los Angeles in late March about the U.S.-Iran war. “I’m extremely worried,” Asghari said. “War is not something that I want, that anybody wants in the world…But truthfully, the people of Iran have been asking for help and the people of Iran, the majority of them, are sort of happy that this sad moment is creating history.”
He said, “We live in the most pivotal moment in history, and it’s very confusing to have where you come from being bombed, but at the same time, the people of Iran, our hope is to have their government being removed.”
Rounding out the cast of the film are Ali Farahani, Anthony Belevtsov, Ziza Rafie and Ali Saam.
Film and television credits for Asghari, who was famously married to Britney Spears for 14 months before divorcing in 2024, include “Hacks,” “Lioness,” “Jackpot!,” “The Traitors” and “Black Monday.”
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