Sanya Malhotra

Sanya Malhotra has one of the most quietly enviable filmographies of her generation, largely because she has spent it refusing the obvious move. Born in Delhi in 1992 into a Punjabi family, she came in through Dangal in 2016, which is about as high-pressure a debut as Hindi cinema offers, being a supporting role in one of the highest-grossing Indian films ever made.

Most people would have cashed that in. She did not. Photograph in 2019 and the black comedy Ludo in 2020 both earned her Filmfare Critics nominations for Best Actress, and the streaming run that followed is the real body of work: Shakuntala Devi, Pagglait, Love Hostel, Kathal and Mrs. The last two won her Filmfare OTT Awards. In Pagglait she played a young widow discovering her husband’s infidelity, which is not a part anyone takes to be liked.

She has done the commercial films too, Badhaai Ho in 2018 and Sam Bahadur in 2023, so this is not a case of an actor hiding from the mainstream. She just seems to pick on the basis of the part rather than the poster.

Everything below is from our own cameras.

More on Sanya Malhotra: en.wikipedia.org