Sepideh Moafi

From Regensburg to California

Sepideh Moafi was born in a refugee camp in Regensburg in 1985. Her parents fled Iran after the revolution and spent two years in Germany before securing visas for the United States. That childhood, marked by asylum and uncertainty in reception centers, explains her distance from the hollow glitter of Hollywood.

Before acting came music. She trained as an opera singer at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and her voice gave her access to the most demanding artistic circles on the West Coast. But the operatic stage soon felt too small for her.

In 2013, she completed her master's degree in acting at the University of California, Irvine. She started with brief roles in series such as Blue Bloods and The Good Wife, where she learned the rhythm of New York television shoots. Her academic training was the foundation that helped her navigate the industry's casting processes.

And the gamble paid off.

In 2017, she landed the role of Loretta in The Deuce. David Simon was looking for a presence that could hold its own opposite James Franco, and she built a character with a toughness that wasn't on the pages of the original script. The HBO series gave her the visibility she needed to move on to projects with greater political weight.

Maturity in Streaming

In 2019, she joined the cast of The L Word: Generation Q to play Gigi Ghorbani. Her character became a phenomenon within the LGBTQ+ community thanks to her confidence and lack of inhibitions. The series was canceled in 2023 after three seasons with very uneven ratings on Showtime.

But her big leap in performance came in 2022 with Black Bird. In this Apple TV+ miniseries, she played FBI agent Lauren McCauley alongside Taron Egerton. They filmed on real locations in New Orleans to capture the oppressive atmosphere of American federal prisons.

In 2023, she starred in Class of ’09. The plot explored the impact of artificial intelligence on the justice system through three separate timelines. It was an ambitious project that required Moafi to play the same character at different stages of physical and psychological maturity.

Her work doesn't stop at the screen.

Outside the recording studio, she serves as an ambassador for the International Rescue Committee (IRC). In her public appearances, she often recalls that her own family needed that help to survive in Europe during the 1980s. But she makes sure her activism doesn't overshadow her professional career in the industry press.

In 2024, she voiced the animated series Scavengers Reign on Max. The project stood out for its experimental aesthetic, far removed from typical commercial productions. Filming for her next movie, titled Killing Castro, was set in New Jersey locations under the direction of Eif Rivera. The production had a budget of ten million dollars.