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Artoun Nazareth (full legal surname Nazareth Festekjian) is an American actor, comedian, improviser, writer, magician, and hypnotist of Armenian heritage, based in Los Angeles. He is active across live performance, film, and television, with recurring television credits, film roles, and an ongoing live touring career. Ghostbusters fans know him as Rufus, a brief but memorable supporting character in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021).1
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Nazareth Festekjian grew up in an Armenian-American household. He attended Tufts University, where he double-majored in cognitive brain science and drama.2 While a senior at Tufts, he took a role in the university's Department of Drama and Dance production of Daybreak, a play written by Joyce Van Dyke that dramatizes the Armenian Genocide. Nazareth Festekjian played Victoria's husband Harry, among other characters, and identified a linguistic inaccuracy in the script that the production corrected before opening.2 He has described the production as emotionally demanding: "It was a difficult topic. I felt emotionally connected to this piece. It's been the hardest production to work on in terms of having to go home at night after rehearsals."2
During his time at Tufts he also interned as a production intern at Locomotive Film.
Nazareth works across multiple performance disciplines. On stage he is a regular performer at the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) theatre in Los Angeles, performing weekly with the Harold team "Dance Club Remix" and the sketch team "Smokeshow." He also hosts the bi-weekly improv tournament "The CageMatch."3 He is represented for theatrical and commercial work by Artistic Talent, for voiceover by CESD, and for management by Venture Entertainment.3
His early television career included five episodes of the TV mini-series Westinghouse (2019) as Andre Kurkjian, and five episodes of The Conners (2018-2019) as Pierre, the ABC sitcom spinoff of Roseanne. He appeared as a bellman in the Stumptown season one episode "Dex, Drugs and Rock & Roll," as a game show contestant in the Disney+ series Muppets Now (in the episode "Fever Pitch," which featured Pepe the King Prawn's unbelievable game show), and in guest appearances on CBS's SEAL Team and the CBS sitcom United States of Al as Luke.1
In 2020 he starred as the title character in the short film Night Shifts.4 On the film side he appeared as "Guy with a Hat" in the 2023 Wall Street drama Dumb Money, directed by Craig Gillespie.4
He has also appeared in Progressive Insurance commercials and provided voice work for the Bethesda video game Starfield.3
From 2024 onward he took on a recurring role as Joshua across six episodes of The Promised Land, a faith-based drama streaming on Angel Studios.4
Alongside his screen work, Nazareth tours in comedy and magic under the show Varietopia, a collaborative production with comedian Paul F. Tompkins.3 He co-hosts a podcast with his wife titled The Cage Old Question, which explores the proposition that Nicolas Cage is cinema's greatest actor.3
In Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), Nazareth plays Rufus, a line cook at Spinners Roller Hop, the roller-skating diner in Summerville, Oklahoma where Lucky Domingo works. Rufus appears alongside fellow cook Zahk in a brief kitchen scene in which Lucky relays an order. The scene is played for a low-key comedic beat involving raw meat. The character has no supernatural involvement in the main story; he is one of the ordinary Summerville residents whose workplace serves as a backdrop for Lucky's introduction.5
The film's end credits list the actor under his full professional name, Artoun Nazareth Festekjian.5
Nazareth grew up in an Armenian-American household. His mother and grandmother maintained Armenian culinary traditions, which he has cited as a formative part of his upbringing. He has spoken publicly about Armenian diaspora food culture, including the dish lahmajun, on the Sprung On Food podcast hosted by Katherine Sprung.6
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
"Artoun Nazareth," IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7938836/. Accessed 2026-06-13. ↩ ↩2
Armenian Assembly of America, "Tufts Drama Department explores Armenian Genocide with production of 'Daybreak'" (2015), https://www.armenian-assembly.org/post/tufts-drama-department-explores-armenian-genocide-with-production-of-daybreak. Accessed 2026-06-13. ↩ ↩2 ↩3
"Artoun Nazareth" (official website), https://www.artounnazareth.com/. Accessed 2026-06-13. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
"Artoun Nazareth," The Movie Database, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/2682377-artoun-nazareth. Accessed 2026-06-13. ↩ ↩2 ↩3
Sprung, Katherine (July 25, 2025). "The History of Lahmajun with Guest Artoun Nazareth," Sprung On Food, Season 4, Episode 35. https://katherinesprung.com/episodes/2025/7/25/s4-ep-35-the-history-of-lahmajun-with-guest-artoun-nazareth. ↩
