Parminder Nagra
| Home > P > Parminder Nagra |
|
Videos more videos
Biography
Parminder Nagra is an English actress of Indian descent famous for her portrayal of a woman football player in critically acclaimed hit movie Bend It Like Beckham.
Parminder Kaur Nagra was born on October 5, 1975 in Leicester, England. Her parents were Sikh immigrants from the Punjab region of northern India who had settled in England in the late 1960s. Her father Sucha was a factory worker and her mother Nashuter was a packer in a factory. Her parents separated when Parminder was a child. Her working class background can be gauged from the fact that Parminder, her two younger brothers, and her younger sister were raised in a small terrace house in the Belgrave district of Leicester.
Parminder attended Northfield House Primary School in Leicester and later joined the Soar Valley College. It was in the later school that she became part of the youth orchestra and also appeared in her first theatrical productions.
In 1991, a 16-year-old Parminder took the job as an usher at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre. She honed her acting skills by watching the local talent at the theater. Her first acting break came in 1994 when she became a part of Hathi Productions, a leading Leicester-based British Asian theatre company. Initially she was cast as a chorus member in the musical Nimai (1994) presented at the Leicester Haymarket. However, she soon replaced the lead actress of the musical.
Buoyed by this small success, Parminder left Leicester for London to pursue a theatrical career. However, the going was tough in the initial days and she struggled to find theatrical work. Her first London theatrical job came in 1994 when she was cast as the Princess in Sleeping Beauty, a Christmas-time pantomime production at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. Though the show failed to impress critics, Nagra's performance was notable as she, a woman of color, portrayed a traditionally white character.
Most of her career in the 1990s involved working with small Asian theatre companies such as Tara Arts and Tamasha and appearances on television and radio shows. Though she did not have formal theatrical training, she signed on with veteran London-based agent Joan Brown. Joan was instrumental in Parminder getting television roles. She appeared in the British medical drama Casualty, and in the television movie King Girl. In 1997, she appeared in the three-part drama Turning World, starring Roshan Seth.
In 1999, Parminder appeared in the television movie Donovan Quick, starring Colin Firth and on British Asian comedy shows Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No. 42.
Apart from cementing herself on British television, Parminder also did some notable work on radio. She played a part in radio plays written by noted author and playwright Tanika Gupta. She was also a part of Dancing Girls of Lahore (1998), a radio play co-written by her future Bend It Like Beckham co-star, Shaheen Khan. In 2001, she was the voice of a Muslim girl in Arena: The Veil, a docu-drama about women who choose to wear the Muslim head scarf.
Though her television and radio career was making her popular, Parminder achieved most critical acclaim for her stage performances. It was while playing the lead role in Oh Sweet Sita (1997), an adaptation of Indian lore about Rama and his dutiful wife Sita, that she caught the attention of director Gurinder Chadha. Gurinder would later write the script for Bend It Like Beckham with Nagra in mind for the lead role.
Parminder's notable stage appearances Nagra's included Skeleton (1997), A Tainted Dawn (1997), Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings & A Funeral (1998), Krishna's Lila (1999), The Square Circle (1999), and River on Fire (2000).
Despite her stage success, it was Gurinder Chadha's 2002 surprise hit Bend It Like Beckham that brought Parminder to international limelight. The movie was not only hugely successful in United Kingdom but went on to become the highest-grossing British comedy in U.S. history. For her performance, Parminder became the first woman honored as FIFA's International Football Personality of the Year and gathered at least nine acting award nominations from various film organizations. She won the Golden Wave Award at the Bordeaux International Festival of Women in Cinema for "best actress" and the Movieline Young Hollywood Award for "best breakthrough performance."
After Bend It Like Beckham, Parminder appeared in Miramax's fairy tale Ella Enchanted, Channel 4's Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and in the Anglo-Indian drama Second Generation. The latter winning her a prestigious Ethnic Multicultural Media Academy (EMMA) Award.
In September 2003, Parminder appeared on the TV series ER. She went ahead to appear in 21 of the season's 22 episodes.
Parminder continued to receive accolades for her performance in ER including a Teen Choice Award nomination (2004), Outstanding Achievement in Acting Award from the South Asian Students' Alliance (2005), and nomination for Asian Excellence Award, in the category of Outstanding Female Television Performance (2006).
Links
Parminder Nagra Online Celebrity Site of the Day on 8/28/06
Net Glimse: Parminder Nagra
The Numbers - Parminder Nagra
Beauty Beyond Belief-Parminder Nagra
101lifestyle.com: Parminder Nagra
Related Celebrities
Anna Friel
Kate Winslet
Kelly Macdonald
Kelly Reilly
Kim Medcalf
Naomie Harris
Rhona Mitra
Sienna Guillory
Sonya Walger
Zoe Lucker
