Julian Kostov (born 25 August 1989) is a Bulgarian actor and filmmaker. In 2025, he starred as Marek in the West End production of Till the Stars Come Down at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, a transfer from the Royal National Theatre. He has been described as the first Bulgarian actor to perform in a West End production. In 2026, he was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series as part of the cast of the HBO series The White Lotus. He gained international recognition for his roles in Shadow and Bone (2021) and as the antagonist Vladimir Makarov in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023). His film career includes starring roles in the action-comedy Fight or Flight (2025) alongside Josh Hartnett, the anti-superhero comedy The Toxic Avenger (2023), and the war dramas The Last Front (2024) and Another Mother's Son (2017). He is slated to appear in the upcoming Netflix feature The Boy in the Iron Box, produced by Guillermo del Toro. Beyond his acting career, Kostov is the founder of JupiterLights Media and co-founder of Five Oceans alongside Academy Award-nominee Maria Bakalova, with multiple award-winning projects as a producer and director, including Triumph, Bulgaria's official submission for the 97th Academy Awards. Kostov has spoken about the need for greater representation of Slavic and Balkan actors and the normalization of foreign accents on screen. (Via Wikipedia)