After earning a Baccalauréat at the Lycée Condorcet of Belfort, Rahim enrolled first in sports and then computer science programmes. After two subsequent years of boredom studying the subjects in Strasbourg and Marseille, Rahim decided to pursue his passion and began to study film at the Paul Valéry University of Montpellier. His life as a film student was chronicled in a docufiction by fellow BelfortainCyril Mennegun titled "Tahar, student", aired on French TV channel France 5 in 2006.
Following this, Rahim moved to Paris in 2005 and studied drama at the Laboratoire de l'Acteur under Hélène Zidi-Chéruy while working in a factory during the week, and in a nightclub at weekends, to make ends meet.
Career
In mid-2006, after signing with an agent, Rahim won a part in the hit Canal+ television series La Commune written by Abdel Raouf Dafri. Dafri penned the first draft of the script to A Prophet. Rahim then met Jacques Audiard when the two coincidentally shared a cab while leaving a set. Rahim introduced himself saying that "I knew it was Audiard and I said I was a fan but I think I was a bit silly" and was afterward very surprised that Audiard remembered him enough to contact him about A Prophet.
After a two-line appearance in the 2007 horror movie Inside starring Béatrice Dalle, he went through a gruelling three months of auditioning. After eight callbacks, he landed his breakthrough role.[4][5]
Rahim in 2012
Rahim also starred in controversial Chinese director Lou Ye's film Love and Bruises. The director, twice banned from making movies by the Chinese government, likely met Rahim at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival where they were each presenting Spring Fever and A Prophet respectively. Love and Bruises is the adaptation of the banned biography of Jie Liu Falin.
Rahim is married to fellow French actress Leïla Bekhti, whom he met while filming A Prophet in 2007. Together they have four children.[14][15][16][17][18]
In June 2024, Rahim signed a petition addressed to French President Emmanuel Macron demanding France to officially recognize the State of Palestine.[19]
2007 – 2008: Libres sont les papillons in the role of the blind character Benjamin. The play was an adaption from its original English into French of Butterflies are free written by Leonard Gershe by Hélène Zidi-Chéruy who also directed and staged it at the Côté Court Theater, 11th arrondissement of Paris.
