Simon Abkarian (born 5 March 1962) is a French-Armenian actor. Born in Gonesse, Val d'Oise, of Armenian descent, Abkarian spent his childhood in Lebanon. He moved to Los Angeles, where he joined an Armenian theater company managed by Gerald Papazian. He returned to France in 1985, settling in Paris. He took classes at the Acting International school, then he joined Ariane Mnouchkine's Théâtre du Soleil and played, among others, in L'Histoire terrible mais inachevée de Norodom Sihanouk, roi du Cambodge ("The Terrible but Unfinished Story of Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia") by Hélène Cixous, and in the House of Atreus four-play cycle by Aeschylus. The New York Times critic John Rockwell wrote on 27 March 1991 : "But the star of this cycle is Simon Abkarian. Mr. Abkarian takes on Agamemnon, Achilles, a chorus leader, a Messenger, Orestes and, as an almost giddy bonus, Orestes' aged Nurse. These are parts with a huge range, and Mr. Abkarian was master of them all.