Kahlil Joseph

Kahlil Joseph (pronounced "Kha-leel") is an American film, television and stage actor and teacher of performing arts.

He has worked extensively in the United States and India.

Joseph is based in Los Angeles.

Joseph was born in New Delhi, India, but moved shortly after to Sydney, Australia with his parents for five years.

While in Sydney, Joseph did his first play, acting as Noah in a production of "Noah's Ark".

That created the love for performing in him.

From a young age, Joseph constantly displayed a strong interest in entertaining audiences with various types of performances.

Never one to be satisfied with learning one thing, he always tried to learn as many new things as he could.

Joseph had an extremely keen ear for sound since childhood, and would continually mimic everyone and everything he could.

Joseph was constantly encouraged to read books that were advanced for his age.

His parents introduced him to various authors, to build his interests and knowledge of other cultures and people.

In 1983, Joseph moved back to New Delhi with his parents and attended St. Columba's School, Delhi.

By the age of 9, trained extensively in voice and diction by his father, Joseph started consistently winning inter-school declamation and debate championships, which continued till the time he was 17.

Simultaneously, at the age of 7, Joseph began a lifelong practice of another discipline that has had a profound effect on his work and person to this day – the martial arts.

When Joseph watched the legendary Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon, he was inspired immediately by the way Lee so expressed himself through his physicality and movement.

Starting with Shotokan Karate, Joseph branched into Tae Kwon Do, Hung Gar Kung Fu, and boxing.

He competed on a semi-contact and full-contact amateur level.

Joseph earned his first Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Ramjas College, University of Delhi, India.

During his studies, he was the lead singer for various heavy metal and hard rock bands in New Delhi.

He learned and developed a high respect during this time for such a type of singer, whom he believes needs even more vocal and physical strength and resilience than a speaker or singer of another genre.

Following college, Joseph was immediately cast as Jean Valjean in a Delhi production of the acclaimed Broadway musical Les Misérables in 1998, which turned out to be his biggest musical theater success in New Delhi.

Training to sing in this show was a huge learning experience for him, as he now needed to sing a completely different style from his usual gigs – classical operatic.

This also improved his speaking voice remarkably.

His performance got him noticed by a casting director for a new primetime TV drama series Khwahish, and in 1999, he joined the show as its antagonistic fashion designer Ronaldo.

He continued his role and also played Zach in the Indian premiere of the stage musical A Chorus Line at Kamani Auditorium, Delhi, until he left India in August 1999.

Joseph had always wanted to work as an actor in the United States.

So, in spite of Bollywood on the horizon, he packed his bags and headed to Concord University in Athens, West Virginia as a student.

By this time, he wanted to learn more about the American acting industry and find work in Hollywood and the American stage while pursuing his second Bachelor of Arts degree, this time in Communication Arts (Theater & Broadcasting).

From the time he entered the U.S., Joseph managed to consistently break ethnic and racial bounds as an actor through his quick ability with multiple accents and physical skills by being cast in many roles that were not originally written for an Indian actor.

In 2001 and 2002, Joseph played the characters Blue Jacket and Wasegoboah in the acclaimed outdoor drama Tecumseh! in Chillicothe, Ohio.

In 2003, Joseph starred as Talvin in the feature film Far From India, which had a gala premiere at the Weinberg Center for the Arts in Frederick, Maryland.

Since Joseph moved to Los Angeles in 2003 to pursue his MFA in Acting, he played Faruq Abdullah in the acclaimed play The Road To Damascus in 2004, which was critically praised in the LA Weekly by Sandra Ross (October 22, 2004) commenting how "Joseph and … deliver persuasive performances …".

In 2005, he made his debut on American television on E! as Martin Bashir in The Michael Jackson Trial, as well as lent his voice to the acclaimed Naked In Ashes, a feature-length documentary about yogis in India, which premiered at the NuArt Theatre.

In the same year, Joseph was also featured as a guest celebrity on the Showbiz India Xtreme program.

By the time he graduated summa cum laude from Concord University, Joseph had worked professionally in the vocally demanding arena of outdoor drama and film, learned to ride horses, choreograph fights for the stage and film, and gotten accepted into a competitive graduate class of 10 actors at the prestigious UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, where he earned his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Acting in 2006.

In 2006, Joseph played a lead role as Ibrahim Shaalan in the action feature film Special Ops: Delta Force, acting alongside English actor Mark Ryan.

Joseph also guest starred as Resident Amer in the TV series Untold Stories of the ER.

In October 2006, Joseph joined the cast of the hit television daytime drama Days of Our Lives for a month in a recurring guest star role as Dr. Myers.

Joseph's character played the specialist who is desperately searching for a cure to save the poisoned characters Kayla Johnson and Steve Johnson.

On Thanksgiving Day 2006, Joseph appeared as a real-life Christian evangelical preacher seeking asylum in America in the television special Thanksgiving USA, hosted by Pat Boone.