Zahra Aghapour

Zahra Aghapour was born in 1993 in Iran; she is an Iranian actress. She has a bachelor’s degree in acting and a master’s degree in art research.

She has performed in 6 theaters, 9 short films and one feature film. She holds 3 awards and 4 nominations in Iran and international film festivals for acting. She believes that everyone lives once and dies once.

“I was born once and lived a thousand times and will die a thousand times.”

There are moments of great intimacy and familiarity with the young Kian Zarei, how did you achieve this complicity and closeness with him?

Well, I personally create a sincere and friendly relationship with the cast and crew and actors of any project, and it is difficult for me to work in an atmosphere other than this. I had many rehearsal sessions with Kian, and with the knowledge I got from him, I understood that the only way for us to communicate better is to be intimate together.

We played together, we talked together. If he was upset about something or complained about someone, I was the first person he would confided to me. I think this trust and friendship was the most important point of our communication.

You start out happy and hopeful and quickly slide into utter despair with the loss of Omid. How was the acting experience of changing so much emotional intensity in the film?

For me, Afsaneh was a challenging and different character and it was far from my own personality, we worked on analyzing the character in several meetings and we were looking for a feature in this character, and I came to the conclusion with Maryam that Afsaneh’s way of look is the most important aspect of the character. And we knew that if we get to that point, the rest of the character will be created by itself, and that’s how it happened.

How did you approach the performance in the most intense sequence of the film in the cobbled alley when you confess your secrets to Ali Tabe Imam? You seem to avoid visual contact with the actor, staring into space and thinking about dreams and hopes lost until the climactic moment.

I am happy that this sequence has been in your interest, as I said the first thing we achieved was the way of this characters look, I am a kind of intuitive actress, generally after cognition the character I put her completely in the situation and let her to encounter events.

Afsaneh was a strong woman, she had a secret and it was her weak point in front of Bahram and at the same time seeing the images of the child she created in her imagination and she herself was forced to kill.

What was it like working with Maryam Khodabakhsh? How and when did she first show you the idea of the movie?

Maryam Khodabakhsh is a patient, kind-hearted director with good manners and insight. One of the most important things that is her strength in directing is listening. She listens and thinks with all her heart. Currently, our second film is being prepared for festivals. I was also introduced to Maryam by one of our mutual colleagues after reading the script.