Karren Karagulian brings a welcome ordinariness to Sean Baker’s comedies. We particularly recommend his work in Anora, where the effort of dealing with other people becomes funny without quite letting us forget who has reason to be afraid.
Fi1m perspective
In Anora (2024), Toros arrives to deal with a marriage on behalf of Ivan’s family, and Karren Karagulian makes the job look exhausting. Alongside Vache Tovmasyan’s Garnik and Yura Borisov’s Igor, he is part of a group struggling to get Ani under control. Sean Baker holds the shots long enough for the men’s exhaustion to become part of the joke. We laughed, then felt uncomfortable, because Ani’s fear was there beneath the commotion. Karagulian is funny in company, leaving room for the other actors and for that discomfort.
Baker has been his principal collaborator since Four Letter Words (2000), in which he played a petrol station clerk. Prince of Broadway (2008) gave him the more substantial role of Levon, but his work remained largely within Baker’s independent films until Anora brought wider attention. On Tangerine (2015), he was also an associate producer, contributing Armenian dialogue and helping with casting. There is practical work behind that ease on screen: his contribution includes helping decide how people speak and who should play them.
As Razmik, the Armenian cab driver in Tangerine, he supplies the unforced, everyday presence the part needs. We believe in him; we are less persuaded that the film needs so much of his separate story. Baker edits the film himself, and his rapid cutting keeps the comedy brisk without losing the rapport between Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor. Returning to their friendship restores a tension and intimacy that the wider encounters cannot consistently provide. Karagulian is good here, and we recommend the film, but his strand does not always justify the interruption.
The more substantial part in Anora is useful evidence against treating him as someone who merely supplies a bit of local detail. Toros has a job to do, other people to answer to and a situation that refuses to settle down; Karagulian makes that pressure clear without needing the film to pause for him. We would happily watch him carry more of a film. Give him a specific predicament, rather than a few lines of general irritation.
Biography
Karren Karagulian is an Armenian-American actor. Born in 1969 in Soviet Armenia, he immigrated to New York City in his early twenties.
He is known for his long collaboration with director Sean Baker, appearing in all of Baker’s feature films since Four Letter Words (2000). His roles include parts in Take Out (2004), Prince of Broadway (2008), Starlet (2012), Tangerine (2015), The Florida Project (2017) and Red Rocket (2021). He received an associate producer credit on Tangerine.
In 2024 Karagulian played Toros in Baker’s Anora and was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Performance.
