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Saman – formerly Farzaneh – Arastu takes male role in Anahita a year after playing a woman in another film

She earned her acting credentials playing female characters in a host of hit films and television dramas. Now one of Iran's best-known screen actors has ditched her previous persona to embark on a new career playing male roles.

But Saman – formerly Farzaneh – Arastu's gender transformation has little to do with dramatic talents. Instead she has turned into a he by becoming the first known Iranian actor to undergo a sex change operation.

Following a career as a female actor, Arastu, 42, has already played one role as a man after taking advantage of surprisingly liberal laws that make Iran second only to Thailand for carrying out the most sex change operations.

The cameo role in Anahita, a recent film about a group of students doing research into water molecules, came only a year after playing a woman in another cinema production, The Extorter. While homosexuality is outlawed as a sin under Iran's sharia legal code, sex changes are legal as the result of a fatwa issued by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, spiritual leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Conservative attitudes mean there is greater social tolerance for women undergoing operations to become men than the other way around. Government financial aid is available for gender change surgery.

Arastu told an Iranian magazine that the decision to change sex had been driven by the lifelong feeling of being a male trapped inside a female body. The courage to undergo surgery had been plucked up only after years of counselling. But the decision had prompted a psychological – as well as a physical – transformation.

"Now I feel totally well," Arastu said. "Previously there was only fear and depression in my eyes. I was always hiding myself and justifying myself."

• Iran
• Gender

Robert Tait
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Denzel Washington and Scarlett Johansson head list of talent heading to Broadway amid Hollywood economic crisis

New Yorkers will not need to go to their nearest multiplex cinema to catch the latest performances by stars such as Denzel Washington, Scarlett Johansson or Christopher Walken. Instead, they will soon be able to see some of Hollywood's A-list in the flesh.

A flock of famous movie talent has swapped the sunshine and glamour of making films in Los Angeles for the more artistically rigorous demands of New York's theatre world.

Washington is starring in a new revival of Fences, a play by American writer August Wilson, which opens next month. Johansson and Liev Schreiber are already starring in Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge. Walken's performance as a deranged killer in Martin McDonagh's new play, A Behanding in Spokane, is also drawing in big crowds. Other current or recent big names appearing on stage include Laura Linney, Daniel Craig, Hugh Jackman and Jude Law.

Many Hollywood stars claim that appearing on stage represents a purer form of acting than celluloid and boosts their credibility as thespians, not mere film stars. "The first thing I want to do is more theatre. The second thing I want to do is direct movies. Acting in movies is now No 3 on the list," Washington told the New York Post tabloid recently.

But there may be a more prosaic reason. Hollywood studios are currently in the middle of an economic crisis. Studios have been hit by the lingering impact of the 2008 Hollywood strike and then the deep bite of the recession. Despite recent mega-hits such as Avatar, many studios are cutting costs and binning new film projects. MGM, for example, released just one movie last year, and some industry watchers think it is teetering on the verge of collapse. The famed independent movie studio Miramax is up for sale after huge job losses. It too slashed the number of films it is releasing.

At the same time many top Hollywood stars have seen a drop in their ability to demand massive wages for a movie. Lucrative deals where stars took a first cut of a film's box office have all but disappeared.

In short, a lot of film stars are finding work and cash a little harder to come by. No wonder a spell on Broadway suddenly looks good.

New York's theatre world is, however, welcoming them with open arms, despite a little behind-the-scenes grumbling from some of the city's thousands of perennially under-employed actors. Attaching a big name to a play guarantees press attention and a healthy public interest. If the names are big enough it can even make a production "review-proof" as audiences will flock to see the stars whatever the reviews. Many New York theatres and producers are now basing their business model around short-run plays with big star names.

"It is nice to have such an influx of stars coming to Broadway. It does help the business. They can help draw an audience and that will help any producer," said Dan Bacalzo, managing editor of Theatremania, a leading New York-based theatre website. Certainly some plays clearly do much better with star names than without. When a recent production of God of Carnage opened with an all-star cast, including James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden, it played to packed houses. But when its cast switched to a group of highly praised but lesser-known actors, its take dropped and during the usual bonanza of Christmas week the once packed-out play was showing in front of a house at only 69% capacity.

Lucy Liu, star of the Charlie's Angels movies, has now been brought into the show.

Of course, being a famous movie star does not always mean someone can act in the theatre, especially when swapping the pampered movie world of multiple takes and reshoots for the brutal and unforgiving arena of live performance.

Yet many recent film stars have also drawn rave reviews, especially Walken, Law and Johansson. "I think if anybody was annoyed that Scarlett Johansson was here, they should go and see A View From The Bridge. She has been excellent in that part," said Bacalzo.

Future and current productions include:

Denzel Washington is starring in an upcoming production of the play Fences.

Scarlett Johansson is earning rave reviews in a View From The Bridge.

Laura Linney is playing a war photographer in Time Stands Still.

Lucy Liu is appearing in God of Carnage.

James Spader is starring in David Mamet's Race.

Christopher Walken is the lead role in the gruesome new play A Behanding in Spokane.

Anthony Mackie, who starred in the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker, is playing opposite Walken.

John Lithgow is in Mr and Mrs Fitch.

• Theatre
• New York
• Scarlett Johansson
• Denzel Washington
• Daniel Craig
• Hugh Jackman
• Jude Law
• United States
• Film industry

Paul Harris
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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