Born in
Gonesse,
Val d'Oise, of
Armenian descent, Abkarian spent his childhood in
Lebanon. He moved to Los Angeles, where he joined an Armenian theater company managed by Gerald Papazian. He returned to France in 1985, settling in Paris. He took classes at the Acting International school, then he joined
Ariane Mnouchkine's
Théâtre du Soleil and played, among others, in ''L'Histoire terrible mais inachevée de Norodom Sihanouk, roi du Cambodge
("The Terrible but Unfinished Story of Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia") by Hélène Cixous, and in the House of Atreus'' four-play cycle by
Aeschylus. Abkarian left the Théâtre du Soleil in 1993. In 2001 he starred in
Beast on the Moon by Richard Kalinoski, directed by
Irina Brook, a play about the life of a survivor of the
Armenian genocide, a role which won him critical acclaim and the
Molière Award for Best Actor. His first roles in cinema were proposed by French filmmaker
Cédric Klapisch, who asked him to play in several of his movies, notably in
Chacun cherche son chat ("When the Cat is Away", 1996) and in '''' in 2003. He was featured in
Sally Potter's
Yes (2004), in which he played the lead role. Abkarian then played Mehdi Ben Barka in the thriller ''J'ai vu tuer Ben Barka
by Serge Le Péron, about the kidnapping and the murder of the leader of the Moroccan opposition. He then played in Prendre Femme
by Ronit Elkabetz which won him several acting awards. Playing different roles and in different genres, he was featured in the adventure Zaïna, cavalière de l'Atlas
by Bourlem Guerdjou, in the comedy Le Démon de midi'' by Marie-Pascale Osterrieth. He has also appeared in
Atom Egoyan's
Ararat (2002), he was Albert in
Almost Peaceful (2004) by French director
Michel Deville, and he was featured in
Your Dreams (2005) by Denis Thybaud. He was featured as Sahak in the thriller
Les Mauvais Joueurs ("The Gamblers") (2005) by Frédéric Balekdjian. He played the role of villain Alex Dimitrios in the
James Bond film,
Casino Royale. The character is an arms dealer working against Bond. He has also been the voice of Ebi in the French version of the animated feature
Persepolis. Abkarian played the role of the Armenian poet
Missak Manouchian in
The Army of Crime (2010) by
Robert Guédiguian, a French filmmaker based in
Marseille, who is also of Armenian parentage. He has also played Dariush Bakhshi, the Iranian Special Consul, in the
BBC drama
Spooks (
MI-5). In 2012, he played the role of a drug-dealing
Afghan army colonel in the
Canal+ series
Kaboul Kitchen. He has the lead role in a two-part
biopic of
Charles de Gaulle which filmed in 2023 and 2024. ==Filmography ==