Nabeel El Khafif

Nabeel El Khafif is a Canadian-born actor, and former physician and surgeon. He has played a variety of roles in film and television, including 'The Expanse', 'American Gods', 'The Mist', and 'X-men: Apocalypse'. Nabeel El Khafif was born January 2, 1984 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He is the eldest of two children from Gamila Zahran, a pharmacist, and Mahmoud El Khafif, an economist and diplomat with the United Nations. He is of Egyptian descent. Throughout elementary, middle, and high school Nabeel performed in school drama productions and often garnered the praise of the audience and his teachers. He excelled academically, skipping three grades, and finishing 13 years of schooling at the age of 15. After being discouraged from pursuing a career in the performing arts, Nabeel attended the University of Waterloo where he studied Bioinformatics. After graduation he was still intent on becoming an actor, however he was forced to pick up a variety of odd jobs to support himself, and was eventually encouraged to pursue a career in medicine instead. He attended medical school at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, where the curriculum was entirely delivered in French. Upon completion of his schooling he was immediately engaged by the University of Geneva hospitals as a surgical resident. He obtained a Master's degree in medicine and won several awards for his research on Pancreatic and Islet transplantation, which was subsequently published in a top-ranked peer-reviewed journal. It was during this period that Nabeel realized he was quickly moving towards the fulfillment of a dream that "was not his." After much careful reflection, he resigned from his position at the hospital, and returned to Canada to to begin his acting career. His first film role was a minuscule appearance in X-men Apocalypse in 2016, and he has since appeared in a variety of film and television roles.