Fares was born on 29 April 1973 in Beirut, Lebanon to a family of Assyrian origin. His younger brother is director Josef Fares, and he has four sisters. In 1987, when Fares was 14 years old, his family moved to Sweden, residing in Örebro.[3] They moved to escape the Lebanese Civil War and chose Sweden because they had relatives who had already lived there.[4] Fares says he learned Swedish within three months of living in Sweden.[4]
From the age of 15, Fares acted in a local theater group in Örebro.[3] When he was 19, he attended drama school in Mölnlycke near Gothenburg, Sweden.[3] He spent six years working in the Theatre Tamauer.
For 2013's Kvinden i buret (English title: The Keeper of Lost Causes),[9] which was set in Denmark, Fares learned to speak Danish.[2]Keeper of Lost Causes is based on a novel by Jussi Adler-Olsen, the first of four features based on his Department Q novels.[10] Fares and Nikolaj Lie Kaas will appear in all four films.[10]Keeper of Lost Causes was Denmark's top film of 2013.[11]Fasandræberne (English title: The Absent One) is the second film in the series.[12] It also broke Danish film grosses, setting new records.[13] The third film in the series, A Conspiracy of Faith (Flaskepost fra P), premiered in Denmark in March 2016 and in the United States in June.[14]
Television
In 2014, Fares portrayed Fauzi Nadal in the TV show Tyrant on the FX Network.[15]Tyrant was renewed for a second season, which began airing in the summer of 2015,[16] and a third season in summer 2016. From 2018 to 2019, Fares appeared in the two HBO series Westworld and Chernobyl. He portrayed the Forsaken Ishamael in The Wheel of Time in 2021 and 2023. In 2024, he appeared as the reccurring role of Ruggiero in Netflix's The Decameron.
Theater
1996: Samuel Beckett's I väntan på Godot (Waiting for Godot) at Teater Tamauer, Sweden
2000: Dom, directed by Jasenko Selimovic, with Torkel Petersson, at the Gothenburg City Theatre (Göteborgs Stadsteater), Gothenburg, Sweden
2000: Natten före skogarna at Teater Tamauer, Sweden