SHOHREH AGHDASHLOO - AGHDASHLOO'S ELIZABETH INSPIRED BY GRANDMOTHER

Oscar nominee SHOHREH AGHDASHLOO based her portrayal of SAINT ELIZABETH in THE NATIVITY STORY on her kind-hearted grandmother. The Iranian actress admits there was very little written about her Biblical character - the mother of JOHN THE BAPTIST - to help her with her research, so she decided to conjure up memories of her grandma. HOUSE OF SAND + FOG star Aghdashloo says, "During the first day of shooting, I realised how much she (Elizabeth) reminded me of my grandmother. "When I was five or six years old she used to take me shopping for rice, chocolate, sugarcubes, and so on. "Then we would get in a cab, go to the slum areas, and randomly knock on the doors to offer up these things. "My grandmother has a Bible in Farsi that she would read to me, and I remember it had pictures of gardens like paradise."