Jerry Habibi

Jerry Farzan Habibi was born on October 24, 1996 in Dallas, Texas. He is a first generation Iranian-American actor, and a native speaker of Persian Farsi and English. In 1997, a year after his birth, Jerry lost his father to a sudden death. He was propelled by this to excel in the face of adversity.

Jerry Habibi premiered the Family Melodrama, The Persian Version (2023), at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. His work in the U.S. Dramatic Award winning film has been praised for his comedic timing, wit, dancing, and natural delivery. Letterboxd Editor-In-Chief Gemma Goodman acknowledged his strong performance as ‘Abbas’ in the October 2023 ‘Watchlist This!’ Column, further noting that “There is an abundance of thirst for one family member in particular: Jerry Habibi”.

He taped for the project in December 2019 and would go on to spend the next few years testing for the role alongside actresses such as Niousha Noor, Medalion Rahimi, Mahnaz Afshar, and Layla Mohammadi. Sony Pictures Classics purchased the film and will begin Theatrical Release on October 20, 2023. His upload of the teaser trailer received over 100,000 organic plays in 24 hours.

He began performing through participating in Persian New Year Festivals in Texas at a young age. There, he studied Persian theater, poetry, and both traditional and modern dance. He continued on to train at local film acting studios, participate in community theater, work with university student filmmakers, and shoot commercial work. From traditional techniques such as Stanislavski, Shurtleff, and Chekhov, to intensives with legendary performers such as Charlie Adler, Habibi is always expanding his catalogue of training.

He received a variety of awards in Texas for choreography, poetry, original plays, and vocal performance at both district and state-wide competitive performing arts tournaments. Karon Cogdill, the late Theater Director of The Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, attested to Jerry’s talent and drive, confirming in a written letter that he was the #1 Ranked Score every year he auditioned. In 2015, he was awarded a multiple-scholarship offer from The New School to attend including the Dean’s and Lang College Scholarships.