Ali Momen

Ali Momen is an Iranian-Canadian actor and singer who was born in Iran and relocated to Canada with his family at the age of three. He grew up in Thornhill, Ontario, attending Thornlea Secondary School before enrolling at York University to study law. After two years, he left that program and pursued musical theatre at Sheridan College, graduating in 2006.

Momen's first film role came in 2008, when he played a suicide bomber in Traitor, a film starring Don Cheadle. He later reflected in an interview that, while he valued the opportunity, he regrets accepting the part due to its contribution to the overrepresentation of Muslims as perpetrators of terrorism and violence. He subsequently appeared in the 2015 film Beeba Boys and built a television career that includes recurring roles on Star Trek: Discovery, the CBC comedy Workin' Moms, and the CTV drama Transplant. In 2020, he announced he was developing a film inspired by the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.

On the stage, Momen played Prakash in a 2014 production of Sultans of the Street at Young People's Theatre in Toronto, earning a Dora Award nomination for Outstanding Individual Performance in the Theatre for Young Audiences division. He then took on the role of Abe in the Canadian premiere of Disgraced at the Panasonic Theatre, which ran from April 3 to 24, 2016, and drew more than 10,000 patrons, setting a box office record for the venue. He transferred with the production to the Citadel Theatre for a run between January 21 and February 12, 2017, and reprised the role when Disgraced returned to the Panasonic Theatre in November 2017. In 2017, Momen also appeared in the world premiere of Monsoon Wedding, produced by Berkeley Repertory Theatre, which ran from May 5 to June 25 of that year.

Momen originated the role of Kevin J., Ali, and others in the Canadian production of Come from Away, which opened at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in February 2018, marking his Broadway-affiliated credit that year. He remained with the production until it was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, then returned when performances resumed in December 2021. The show ultimately closed permanently after Mirvish Productions cited insufficient government support for the arts following the pandemic lockdowns. Momen subsequently reprised the role on the North American tour of Come from Away in 2022 and at a special concert staging of the musical in Gander. He is set to reprise the role again in a Canadian revival production, which is scheduled to play at the Babs Asper Theatre in Ottawa from August 14 to September 1, 2024, before transferring to the Royal Alexandra Theatre beginning September 22, 2024.

Beyond performance, Momen co-founded the dating app Bokay, which launched in March 2024. The platform requires users to engage with personality-revealing prompts before viewing one another's photos, a structure loosely inspired by the premise of Love Is Blind. An AI relationship coach feature called Juno was added to the app in June 2024. Momen has also been active in arts advocacy, beginning in 2020 to promote an initiative he calls an Arts New Deal, modeled on President Franklin D. Roosevelt's support for arts workers during the Great Depression, calling on the Canadian government to fund artists and integrate the arts more broadly into Canadian society. In 2021, he sought the Liberal nomination in the provincial riding of Toronto-St. Paul's but lost the nomination race to Dr. Nathan Stall.