MANY of us are familiar with actors from Bollywood, Kollywood as well as Tollywood studios.
Names like Shah Rukh Khan, Kamal Hassan, Rajnikanth and Chiranjeevi have entertained Asian audiences for many years and are now household names in the region.
However, despite their celebrity here in Asia (or maybe because of it) few have made the jump to the other 'wood' – the original Hollywood.
Back in the 80s there always seemed to be the token Asian actor on the cast of many popular television series. Dustin Nguyen sent many teen hearts a-flutter with his tough guy image on 21 Jump Street, Steve Park tickled our funnybones in comedy series In Living Color, while Rosalind Chao took audiences to where no one had gone before in the Star Trek series, treading a path first established by George Takei's Sulu.
These actors would usually be of Oriental descent, but Indian actors did not feature much. One notable performance was that of Amrish Puri who memorably played a demonic priest in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
However, there appears to be a new generation of actors of Indian descent who have forged their own path in Hollywood.
In 2008, the movie Slumdog Millionaire helped establish the likes of Freida Pinto, Dev Patel, Anil Kapoor and Irrfan Khan in Hollywood.
People of Indian descent from England, United States and Canada are also making a name for themselves. Actors like Navi Rawat, Naveen Andrews, Kal Penn and Parminder Nagra have gained fans thanks to their appearences in multiple TV series and movies.
Here's a list of actors/actress of full or partial Indian descent who are gracing our screens.
Sir Ben Kingsley
Who can forget his portrayal of Gandhi in 1982? Krishan Pandit Bhanji, better known as Ben Kingsley, is a respected actor and has won many awards, from Bafta to the Oscars. Born to an Indian father and British mother in England, he changed his name to help further his career. He made his debut in Fear Is The Key, but his big break came in 1982 when he acted in Gandhi. Other than Gandhi, other famous movies that he has acted is Schindler's List, AI: Artificial Intelligence, Hugo and Prince of Persia. Still, Love Guru, The Wackness and War Inc were panned by critics and he has the dubious distinction of being nominated three times for the Worst Supporting Actor for the 2008 Golden Raspberry Award. Now 69, he is still very active in Hollywood and in 2013, we will see the evergreen actor in Iron Man 3 and Ender's Game.
Kal Penn
Suresh Kalpen Modi aka Kal Penn is known for his roles as Dr Lawrence Kutner on the television program House and Kumar Patel in the Harold and Kumar comedy films. Known for his witty jokes and jovial character, Kal Penn is more than a comedian and actor. His film debut came in 1998 in Express: Aisle to Glory and he's since appeared in American Desi, Dude, Where's the Party?, Superman Returns, Epic Movie, The Namesake and of course the Harold and Kumar series. Penn says that he derived his acting name as a lark: "As a joke to prove friends wrong, I put 'Kal Penn' on my resume and photos." According to Penn, his audition callbacks rose by 50 percent. He prefers his birth name and uses "Kal Penn" only for professional purposes. Penn was also an advocate for Barack Obama's presidential campaign and a member of Obama's National Arts Policy Committee. In early 2009, Penn accepted the position of Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement in the Obama administration. He also was in the popular series How I Met Your Mother, striking a blow for rotund Indian men when dating Cobie Smulders on the show.
Naveen Andrews
Naveen William Sidney Andrews is a British actor best known for portraying Kip in the film The English Patient and Sayid Jarrah on the American television series Lost. The 44-year-old was at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Ewan McGregor and David Thewlis. He got his break in Hanif Kureshi's film, London Kills Me (1991). In 2006, he was voted one of People magazine's World's Most Beautiful People. He also starred in Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996), Mighty Joe Young (1998) and Bride and Prejudice (2004). This year, he is expected to essay the role of Dr Hasnat Khan in one of the most anticipated feature films of 2013, Diana.
Irrfan Khan
Jaipur-born Irrfan Khan's English-language mainstream work includes roles in movies like Slumdog Millionaire, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Life of Pi, as well as HBO series In Treatment. Khan has won three Filmfare Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Independent Spirit Award nomination. He is also the recipient of 2011 Padma Shri award, the fourth-highest civilian award in India. He will always be remembered for his role in Slumdog Millionaire. Director Danny Boyle said of his portrayal of a cop ... "he has an instinctive way of finding the "moral centre" of any character, so that in Slumdog, we believe the policeman might actually conclude that Jamal is innocent".
Freida Pinto
Before Slumdog Millionaire, Pinto anchored the international travel show, Full Circle, on Zee International Asia Pacific from 2006 till 2008. In Slumdog, she playing the role of Latika. Pinto was nominated for "Best Actress in a Supporting Role" at the 2009 BAFTA Awards. In 2009, she was featured in People magazine's "Most Beautiful People List", and "List of World's Best Dressed Women". Pinto co-starred in Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, opposite James Franco. She also scored in Immortals, playing the oracle priestess Phaedra.
Parminder Nagra
Parminder Nagra rose to international prominence in 2002 after starring in Bend It Like Beckham. Following the movie's success, she starred as Dr Neela Rasgotra in the American medical drama series ER for six years until its end in 2009. Bend It Like Beckham was Nagra's breakthrough film, and she took the role very seriously – training up to nine hours daily just to hone her football skills. Nagra received critical acclaim for her performance in that movie and was awarded the Fifa Presidential Award in 2002. Other winners include Sir Alex Ferguson and Franz Beckenbauer, so it's not an award to be scoffed at.
Archie Panjabi
Archie Panjabi is known to many from her portrayal of Kalinda Sharma in The Good Wife – a role which won her an Emmy Award. The 40-year-old has experience in both film and television, from early appearances in the 1999 comedy film East is East to the BBC television series Life on Mars. Her first Hollywood role was in the Oscar-winning The Constant Gardener in 2005, but one of her highest-profile roles was in the 2002 film Bend It Like Beckham, which also featured Parminder Nagra. In 2007, Panjabi appeared with Angelina Jolie in the movie adaptation of A Mighty Heart, where she played a journalist.
Kunal Nayyar
Kunal Nayyar's success is indicative of how widely-accepted Indian accents are these days. Those who have watched The Big Bang Theory and Ice Age: Continental Drift would be familiar with the roles he played, Rajesh Koothrappali and Gupta the Bengali Badger respectively. A University of Portland graduate, Nayyar started off acting in commercials and London musicals. After roles in plays such as Huck & Holden and co-writing Cotton Candy, made a guest appearance in the long-running series, NCIS. His agent then got wind of a role for a scientist in an upcoming CBS pilot and encouraged him to audition. This led to his casting in the The Big Bang Theory and the rest is history!
Sendhil Ramamurthy
Sendhil Ramamurthy was born in Chicago to Indian migrants. He started his career in theatre with roles in A Servant of Two Masters, Indian Ink and East Is East. His break in movies came when he appeared in Love & Debate, and continued with roles in Orient Express, Blind Dating, and It's a Wonderful Afterlife. He has made appearances on several hit TV shows including Grey's Anatomy, CSI: Miami. His biggest role to date has been his portrayal of Mohinder Suresh on Heroes. Although the character was originally written for a 55-year-old, his screen test was so convincing that the part was re-written for him. The 29-year-old actor is currently acting in TV series Beauty and the Beast.
Vik Sahay
Vikram Sahay is a Canadian actor who featured in the TV series, Chuck, where he played Lester Patel, a geek with some serious issues. Sahay was born in Ottawa, Canada to Indian parents and studied Theatre Performance at Montreal's Concordia University. He even has Indian classical dance training, a talent he showcased together with his brother Sidharth Sahay on 1986's You Can't Do That On Television. He might just be the second funniest Canadian of Indian descent after Russell Peters!
Navi Rawat
Navlata Rawat is famed for her roles in TV series The OC and Numb3rs. Now 39, Rawat was born in Malibu, California, to an Indian father and a German mother. She had a guest role as Melanie in the first season of 24 and her work in film includes the sci-fi Thoughtcrimes(2003), the Project Greenlight film Feast (2005), and the independent romantic comedy Loveless in Los Angeles (2006).
Adhir Kalyan
Russel Dunbar (David Spade) and Timir 'Timmy' Patel (Adhir Kalyan) share a chemistry in Rules of Engagement that is lauded by many critics. The South African born actor has acted in comedy movies such as Paul Blart: The Mall Cop, Up in the Air and No Strings Attached. His love for theatre was evident since young as he performed a number of productions in South Africa, including theatrical adaptations of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol.
Behind the lens
M.Night Shyamalan
Manoj Shyamalan or better known as M. Night Shyamalan, is lauded screenwriter, film director, and producer known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots including The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Signs (2002), The Village (2004), Lady in the Water (2006), The Happening (2008) and The Last Airbender (2010). Shyamalan made his first film as a student – the semi-autobiographical drama Praying with Anger. Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, was a commercial success and nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Naren Shanker
Naren Shankar is a writer, producer and director of several television series. As a writer, Shankar has contributed with works for Farscape, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Night Visions, The Outer Limits,The Chronicle, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, seaQuest 2032, Grimm and Star Trek: Voyager. As a producer Shankar has worked with UC: Undercover and Farscape. He also contributed to Doom. He is currently the executive producer and writer of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Jay Chandrasekhar
Jayanth Jambulingam "Jay" Chandrasekhar is best known for directing and starring in Broken Lizard's films Super Troopers, Club Dread, and Beerfest and also directed The Dukes of Hazzard. He was also a guest director for some TV Series notably Chuck and Psych. Chandrasekhar guest-starred alongside his cousin Sendhil Ramamurthy in a 2009 episode of Psych which he also directed. His next movie is Yogi Bear 2 which he is directing and co-writing.
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