'This is Iran's Berlin Wall moment': Omid Djalili, comedian and actor
Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
BBC
4.6 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2026
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The British-Iranian comic on revolutions, Kensington, 9/11 jokes, King Charles and Iran's future.
Omid Djalili has become one of the loudest voices in the Iranian diaspora calling for the overthrow of the regime in Tehran, in favour of US military action.
While the world waits for Trump's next steps, Djalili talks to Nick about growing up in a hub of London's Iranian community, chasing history from Berlin to Czechoslovakia, deciding to perform in Saudi Arabia and turning down Game of Thrones
Producers: Daniel Kraemer and Flora Murray Sound: Jack Wilfan Editor: Giles Edwards
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.2 | If you're the person always being asked, what's happening in the news? |
| 0:10.9 | You could do with a podcast wingman. |
| 0:13.3 | Newscast is just that, a little voice in your ear, |
| 0:16.5 | giving you a deeper understanding of what's going on in the world. |
| 0:19.5 | We won't even mind if you try and take the credit yourself. Listen to Newscast every day on BBC Sounds. This is Iran's Berlin Wall moment. With this whole thing of negotiations, we're not talking about lowering the wall, we're talking about getting rid of them. But when Ronald Reagan said this wall has to come down, he meant bring it down. He didn't say let's lower it a bit. That's my guess this week on political thinking. The actor and comic Omid Jalili is the son of Iranians |
| 0:42.6 | who now shares the stories and the images of those who dare to take to the streets to protest |
| 0:48.1 | against the regime which runs the Islamic Republic. The question many are asking now is whether |
| 0:54.0 | military action is the only way |
| 0:56.1 | to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions, to halt its aggression towards its neighbours, to stop the |
| 1:01.9 | repression of its own people. Many thousands have already been killed in Iran. Jalili believes |
| 1:09.0 | military action is the only way. Best known for his comedy career as well as |
| 1:13.9 | on screen roles in Gladiator, the Mummy, Mamma Mia 2. He is now calling for a rescue mission |
| 1:20.5 | to aid those living in the country, which his parents left back in the 1950s. |
| 1:26.4 | Music parents left back in the 1950s. |
| 1:35.1 | Omidjali, welcome to political thinking. Great to begin. Nick, so good to meet you in person because you look so well, you're so thin, you walk into a snooker hall and start chalking your head. |
| 1:42.5 | That's the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me yeah |
| 1:45.1 | and i've got the right ahead to chalk let's be honest how was watching what's unfolded in iran |
| 1:50.4 | changed your life hugely i think this is something i've been watching for many many years um right now i |
| 1:56.1 | would i can tell you this is pretty much the iranian dias, which is waking up, acrid mouth, bit of water, bit of coffee, saying, are they gone yet? And nothing happening. And then going on social media, going on the telegram channels, see what the latest things are. And talking about it. They meaning the mullahs. They meaning the regime. They meaning Aletola. |
| 2:17.9 | Well, |
| 2:18.1 | Ayatollah Hamini. |
... |
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