Ramin Karimloo

Ramin Karimloo

Ramin Karimloo is an Iranian-Canadian actor, singer and composer recognised mainly for his work in London’s West End. He has played the leading male roles in both of the West End’s longest running musicals: the Phantom and Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny in The Phantom of the Opera, and Jean Valjean, Enjolras, and Marius Pontmercy in Les Misérables. His family fled Iran because his father was in the Imperial Guard for the Shah during the revolution.

About Ramin Karimloo in brief

Summary Ramin KarimlooRamin Karimloo is an Iranian-Canadian actor, singer and composer recognised mainly for his work in London’s West End. He has played the leading male roles in both of the West End’s longest running musicals: the Phantom and Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny in The Phantom of the Opera, and Jean Valjean, Enjolras, and Marius Pontmercy in Les Misérables. He also originated the roles of Gleb in Anastasia and the Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies, which continues the story of Phantom. He’s known to many Phantom fans for playing the role of the Phantom during the 25th Anniversary Performance at the Royal Albert Hall, which was shown live in movie theaters around the world in October of 2011. He made his Broadway debut as Jean ValJean in the 2014 revival production of LesMisérables, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. He played the first act of the sequel of The Phantom in London in March 2010. He recorded the song ‘I Only Wish’ for the album Only Wish with Lindsay Shona and Dianne Pilkington for the Songs from the World of Alexander S. Bermange, an album of 20 new recordings by West End stars by Dress Circle Records.

He is also a featured singer in the musical Bluebird Bluebird, by Gareth Dicks and Peter Dicks, a new musical about World War II, which he played in four countries in September 2014. His family fled Iran because his father was in the Imperial Guard for the Shah during the revolution. They fled to Italy, where they stayed until they moved to Canada. As a 12-year-old living in Canada, he decided to become a performer. His inspiration was Colm Wilkinson, who was performing the title role in the Canadian production of The phantom of the opera in Toronto at the time. He fell in love with Phantom and hoped he would one day perform the titlerole. He moved to Richmond Hill from Peterborough and attended Alexander Mackenzie High School. He joined the UK national tour of The Pirates of Penzance in 2001 and understudied the Pirate King in 2002 in Bath, England. In 2003, he took the roles. of Raoul and some years later also Erik, the Phantom, in The Phantoms. In 2004, he appeared in a concert of Lesmisérables at Windsor Castle in honor of Jacques Chirac.