Sarita Choudhury

Sarita Choudhury

Choudhury at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival
Born Sarita Catherine Louise Choudhury
(1966-08-18) 18 August 1966
Blackheath, London, England
Occupation Actress
Years active 1990–present

Sarita Catherine Louise Choudhury (born 18 August 1966) is an English actress, best known for her roles in the Mira Nair-directed feature films Mississippi Masala (1992), The Perez Family (1995) and Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996).

Early life

Choudhury was born in Blackheath, London, England, of half Bengali Indian and half English descent. Her parents, Julia Patricia (Spring) and Prabhas Chandra Choudhury, a scientist, married in 1964 in Lucea, Jamaica. She studied economics and film at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.[1] She has one younger brother, Kumar Michael Choudhury, and one older brother, Chandra Paul Choudhury.

Career

Choudhury starred opposite Denzel Washington in the 1992 film Mississippi Masala, for which she received her Screen Actors Guild (SAG) card. She was still working as a waitress in Manhattan's East Village to make ends meet while the film was in theaters.[2]

After her debut film Mississippi Masala became an art house hit, Sarita Choudhury acted as a Pakistani country-western singer in Wild West, a Chilean maid who is raped in Bille August's adaptation of The House of the Spirits, and a lesbian mother in Fresh Kill. She starred in Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, a 1996 film directed by Mira Nair.

By the late 1990s, Choudhury added to her repertoire with supporting roles in the thriller A Perfect Murder, 3 A.M, and the John Cassavetes retread Gloria. In 2002, she starred in Just a Kiss. She played a lesbian virgin in Spike Lee's She Hate Me and acted as Anna Ran in Lady in the Water, a 2006 thriller/fantasy film written, produced, and directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

She appeared on Homicide: Life on the Streets for five episodes during the 1998-1999 season as Dr. Kalyani, a medical examiner.

Choudhury played the role of the King's mistress, Helen Pardis, in the NBC drama Kings. The series was based upon the Biblical story of King David but set in modern times. Her character's Biblical counterpart was Rizpah, a concubine of King Saul.

She worked with independent film director Sona Jain in For Real. In an interview with The Statesman she said, "After Mississippi Masala and Kama Sutra I started getting offers in New York... doing theatres... I just went with the flow. One fine day, I thought that I haven't been back to India, haven't shot there and that's something I wanted to. There were Bollywood offers but it was not until Sona's script that made me look at India."[3] The film had a commercial release in September 2010.

She appears as character Saul Berenson's wife, Mira in the TV series Homeland.

In 2011, she appeared in the joint British/French TV series Death in Paradise.

Choudhury also had a brief cameo the 2013 comedy Admission.

She appeared in the films The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014) and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015), as President Snow's assistant, Egeria.

In 2015, she appears as the Deputy White House Political Director Sophia Varma in the American crime drama Blindspot.

Filmography

References

  1. ↑ "From Queen's to Homeland". Queen's University. 2013. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
  2. ↑ "How Did You Get Your SAG-AFTRA Card?" TV Guide. January 13, 2014. p. 10.
  3. ↑ "People want escapism by Mathures Paul".

External links

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