Ever since her marriage in 2014 to the son of a powerful Iranian hard-liner, Mahnaz Afshar, an actress with an uncanny resemblance to 1970s mini-skirted idol Googoosh, has been a figure of controversy in Iran. The recent debate is related to her appearance in November as one of the judges on the show “Persia's Got Talent,” broadcast on a Saudi-funded TV channel — right at the height of political tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Afshar played her first role in a TV series in 1998 and appeared in commercial popular films for a decade. In the late 2000s, she was seen in more artistic films and received the award for best supporting actress at Iran’s Fajr International Film Festival in 2010 and 2011, both for her role in “Saadat Abad” (“Felicity Land”), a social drama.
