Oscar-Winning Director Oliver Stone's Son Converts to Islam

Sean Stone, the son of Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone and a defender of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, converted to Islam on Tuesday while filming a documentary in Iran, he told Agence France Presse.

"The conversion to Islam is not abandoning Christianity or Judaism, which I was born with. It means I have accepted Mohammad and other prophets," Stone, whose famous father is Jewish and mother is Christian, told AFP. He underwent the ceremony in the city of Isfahan.

The 27-year-old did not say why he converted. Iran's Fars news agency said he had become a Shiite and taken the Muslim first name Ali.

In an interview with TheWrap at the Toronto Film Festival in September, he supported Iran's right to a nuclear program as a defense against threats from Israel. He said criticizing the Iranian government is "like someone coming to your house and saying the father shouldn't hit the kids," he said. "Who are we to tell them how to rule their country?"

"Iran is ruled by law," said Stone. "People don't like Ahmadinejad, but that doesn't warrant a war or an uprising."

Stone, who studied history at Princeton, has launched a co-production company to make movies based on Iranian history and culture. He said in September that he wants to make films in Iran, "because they're the biggest filmmakers in the Middle East, I'm very international-minded."

His father has also happily taken political positions often seen as outside the American mainstream, by defending Cuban leader Fidel Castro and anti-American Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

Besides directing, Stone has acted in several films, including his father's. His small roles in Oliver Stone films included a fraternity pledge in "W" and the young Jim Morrison in "The Doors."

(Reuters)