Panos Vlahos

Panos Vlahos is a Greek actor, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose career spans theatre, television, cinema and music. Born on March 10, 1985, in Voula, Attica, he initially studied Shipping at the University of Piraeus and briefly worked for a shipping company before turning professionally toward acting. He subsequently studied at the New Greek Theatre under acclaimed Greek actor and director Giorgos Armenis, beginning a career that would eventually take him from the Greek stage and television to theatrical productions in New York and roles in international television productions.Theatre has been an important foundation of Vlahos' career. His stage work includes productions such as Cyrano de Bergerac, The Frogs, The Ecclesiazusae, The Monstrous Masterpiece, Orestes, The Accidental Death of an Anarchist and Don Juan. He has collaborated with a number of prominent Greek directors and theatre practitioners, including Nikos Karathanos, Lakis Lazopoulos, Petros Filippidis and Nikos Kalogeropoulos, with whom he began his professional acting career.One of his notable theatrical roles came in Aristophanes' The Frogs, where he played Xanthias in a production presented at Epidaurus in 2014. The performance became part of his growing presence in Greek classical theatre, alongside his work in contemporary productions.Vlahos also took his work to the United States. In 2016, he presented Mistero Buffo, Dario Fo's celebrated theatrical work, at the Balcony Theatre in New York. The production, directed by Lyto Triantafyllidou, featured Vlahos as a solo performer taking on multiple roles and combining physical theatre, storytelling and comedy. It later appeared at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, where Mistero Buffo received the Best Physical Theater Award at the United Solo Theatre Festival.His screen career developed alongside his theatre work. One of his early feature-film appearances came in Love in the End (2013), a romantic drama directed by Vasilis Kehagias that tells three interconnected stories of unfulfilled love. Vlahos was part of the ensemble cast alongside Georgina Liossi, Leonidas Kalfagiannis, Katerina Geronikolou and Myriella Kourenti.Television brought Vlahos a much wider audience in Greece. He became particularly recognisable through his role in the long-running comedy series Don't Start Murmuring (Min Arhizeis ti Mourmoura), which began in 2013. His television work subsequently included Angeliki, in which he played Dimitris Argyros during the 2020–2021 series, as well as other Greek productions.His career has also included international television appearances. In 2017, he appeared in the long-running American soap opera Days of Our Lives, playing Kristos. He later appeared in Netflix's Selena: The Series, where he played a photographer in two episodes. These roles marked further steps in his professional activity outside Greece.A particularly important collaboration came with 17 Threads (17 Κλωστές), the six-episode COSMOTE TV series directed by Sotiris Tsafoulias and produced by Tanweer Productions. Vlahos played Antonis Gerakitis, nicknamed "Kastelanis", the central figure in the series, which is based on the real events surrounding the 1909 massacre in Kythera and the novel 17 Threads by Panos Dimakis.The role represented a significant dramatic departure from the lighter television work with which much of the Greek audience had become familiar. As Antonis Gerakitis, Vlahos portrayed a complex central character whose story gradually moves from personal tragedy and social alienation toward violence. The series marked his first major collaboration with director Sotiris Tsafoulias, a partnership that would later continue with Rififi.In Rififi, the COSMOTE TV crime series directed by Sotiris Tsafoulias and produced by Tanweer Productions, Vlahos plays Vakis, one of the seven central characters involved in the 1992 Athens bank heist. The official series credits list him among the principal cast alongside Vassilis Charalambopoulos, Christos Hatzipanagiotis, Evangelia Moumouri, Vladimiros Kyriakidis, Promitheas Aliferopoulos and Dimos Gigantakis.Vakis is a 35-year-old man with a rough appearance and a strong attachment to motorcycles. He lives with his father and his disabled sister, Elli, while carrying deep anger toward a system he believes has taken his family's home away from them. When the bank threatens to take away what remains, he sees participation in the heist as his final opportunity to protect his family. Within the group, Vakis is the most impulsive and explosive member, driven less by the promise of easy money than by a sense of survival.The character also reflects one of the themes that Vlahos himself discussed when speaking about the series: the sense of frustration and lack of meaning experienced by a younger generation. In an interview from the set of Rififi, he described Vakis as someone who has become trapped by this feeling of futility and who finds himself drawn into an extraordinary criminal plan as a result.Alongside acting, music has become an increasingly significant part of Vlahos' creative identity. He is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, bouzouki, baglamas, accordion, double bass and traditional percussion. He has also performed live in venues in New York, including Silvana Harlem.His discography includes albums such as Paixnidia Ton Paidion (2015), Meta (2018), Mathimata Zois (2021), Choris Pareksigisi (2023), Aytolexei (2024) and Plig