Here's Everything To Know About Your Crush From Clickbait
Fun fact: He's from Australia IRL.
Netflix’s new limited series, Clickbait, boasts an impressive cast, including Entourage’s Adrien Grenier, The Big Sick’s Zoe Kazan, and Get Out’s Betty Gabriel. But even among this stacked roster, one lesser known actor is majorly standing out. So, who plays Roshan Amiri in Clickbait? Phoenix Raei should be on your radar.
Warning: Spoilers for Clickbait follow. Raei plays a detective in the Oakland police department who becomes one of the lead investigators in Nick Brewer’s (Grenier) missing persons case, which soon escalates to a homicide investigation after his body is found in Episode 2. Not only does Amiri make it a mission to find Nick’s killer, but he also becomes entangled with his family, specifically Nick’s sister, Pia (Kazan), who Amiri matched with on a dating app just days before meeting her at the police station. Amiri also deals with personal issues like his recent divorce and suspected discrimination at work.
Although Clickbait can be considered Raei’s biggest break yet, the actor already had an established career before starring in the Netflix series. Born in Iran, Raei immigrated to Perth, Australia, as a child, and has lived there ever since. In an interview with Perth Now, Raei said he didn’t think he’d have a career as an actor, although he’s always had an inclination for acting. “I am from a Persian family, so study is important and I studied law,” he said. “But I would grab my parents’ camera and shoot and act ... instead of playing with toys, I would make films.”
Raei eventually moved to Melbourne after he landed his first major role, playing drug dealer Yaghoub Ghaznavi in the 2017 film Australia Day. In 2019, he was awarded the Casting Guild of Australia Rising Star Award, and just a year later in 2020, he co-starred in Stateless, a series created by Cate Blanchett about Australian detention centers. His next film, Black Site, is set to release in 2022.
As for his personal life, the actor recently revealed on Instagram that he’s engaged to Kate Lister, another Australian actor who has worked with Raei in previous projects, including a small role in Clickbait as reporter Jeannine Murphy.
Clickbait is now streaming on Netflix.
