Parminder Nagra

Parminder Kaur Nagra (born October 5, 1975)[1] is a British actress, known for playing Jess Bhamra in the 2002 film Bend It Like Beckham and Dr. Neela Rasgotra in the NBC medical drama series ER from 2003 to 2009. She has had several other major television roles, including a starring role as Meera Malik in the NBC crime drama series The Blacklist from 2013 to 2014 and a recurring role on the ABC/Marvel Television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Ellen Nadeer for its 4th season.
== Early life ==
Nagra was born in Leicester, England, to Sukha and Nashuter Nagra, Sikhfactory workers who emigrated from the Punjab region of India in the 1960s. She is the eldest of four children with two brothers and a sister.[1] Nagra attended the Northfield House Primary School in Leicester. At her comprehensive school, Soar Valley College, she played the viola in the youth orchestra and also appeared in her first theatrical productions.
A few months after sitting her A-levels and leaving school, Nagra was approached by Jez Simons, her former drama instructor, about becoming part of the Leicester-based theatre company Haithizi Productions, for which he served as the artistic director.[2] She accepted and was cast as a chorus member in the 1994 musical Nimai presented at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre.[1] Only a week into rehearsals, she was switched from the chorus to replace the lead actress, who had dropped out.[1] Simons recalls that Nagra, a good singer and actress, also had a quality that raised her above other actresses which led him to select her as the new lead.[2]
== Career ==
=== 1990s to early 2000s ===
Nagra left Leicester for London and decided not to go to university. Instead she pursued a theatrical career and her childhood ambition of becoming an actress.[1] Nagra's first London theatrical job came in 1994, when she was cast as the Princess in the pantomime Sleeping Beauty at the Theatre Royal Stratford East.[1] After Sleeping Beauty, Nagra worked with small Indian theatre companies such as Tara Arts and Tamasha. These roles eventually led to radio and television appearances that defined her career throughout most of the 1990s. She also appeared in "The 6th Wonder of the World: The Kali Tutti Story", in 1994. In 1996, Nagra took a small part in Chikamatsu Monzaemon's Fair Ladies at a Game of Poem Cards that was performed at Cottesloe, Royal National Theatre.
Despite lacking formal theatrical training, Nagra signed with Joan Brown, a veteran London-based agent,[3] after which she was cast in small television roles in the British medical drama Casualty, and in the television film King Girl, in which she played an abusive member of an all-girl gang. In 1997, Nagra appeared in the three-part drama Turning World opposite Roshan Seth. The following year, she appeared on Casualty again. In 1999, she played a convenience store clerk in the television movie Donovan Quick, starring Colin Firth. Also of note were appearances on the British comedy Goodness Gracious Me. Nagra also co-starred in radio plays including, among others, plays by Tanika Gupta. In 1998, Nagra co-starred in the radio play Dancing Girls of Lahorewhich was co-written by her future Bend It Like Beckham co-star Shaheen Khan.
Nagra's other notable stage roles during this period include:
* Skeleton (1997), with critical acclaim for her "bright-eyed vivacity" as the village girl[4]
* A Tainted Dawn (1997) where she played a Hindu boy accidentally left in Pakistan and brought up by a Muslim couple
* Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings & A Funeral (1998) where she showed her skills as a romantic comedian, also to critical acclaim[3]
* Krishna's Lila—A Play of the Asian World (1999) where she was part of a five-person cast in a controversially titled piece[1]
* The Square Circle (1999) in the demanding role of an illiterate peasant girl who becomes a rape victim[1]
* River on Fire (2000), as Kiran, in a retelling of Sophocles' Antigone
In 2001, Nagra voiced a Muslim girl in the docu-drama Arena: The Veil about women who choose to wear the Muslim head scarf. In 1997, not long after Fair Ladies at a Game of Poem Cards, Nagra was cast in Oh Sweet Sita, an adaptation of Indian mythology about Rama and his wife Sita, in the title role of Sita. During that time, Nagra caught the attention of director Gurinder Chadha.[1]
=== Bend It Like Beckham ===
Nagra co-starred in Gurinder Chadha's 2002 comedy-drama Bend It Like Beckham, which became her breakthrough film, opposite Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Anupam Kher, Shaheen Khan, and Keira Knightley, for whom this film also became a career breakthrough. It was directed by Chadha. Nagra played Jesminder "Jess" Bhamra, a teenage Sikh football player who idolises football superstar David Beckham and defies her traditional parents to pursue her dreams of playing football. The small-budget film was a critical and financial success in the United Kingdom, eventually making the leap around the world and to Canada and the United States where it earned over $30 million at the box office. The script was written by Chadha with her husband Paul Mayeda Bergesand Guljit Bindra with Nagra in mind. While initially indifferent to the game of football, Nagra found the football-centred story to be both funny and touching. She agreed to audition and eventually accepted the role. An intensive ten-week training course in the game Futebol De Salao, coached by Simon Clifford, put Nagra through rigorous nine-hour-a-day workouts. Nagra learned to "bend" or curve the ball in flight, as she did in a scene in the film.[5] Acknowledging Nagra's actual burn-scarred leg, Chadha wrote it into the film.
Nagra received critical and professional acclaim for her performance. She was nominated, and won, several awards, including the FIFA Presidential Award(2002), making her the first woman to have done so.[6]
=== 2004–present ===
Not long after filming ended on Bend It Like Beckham, Nagra co-starred in the fantasy romantic comedy Ella Enchanted opposite Anne Hathaway where she played Areida, the best friend of Hathaway's title character.[3] In addition, she took on two notable television roles for Channel 4—as Viola/Cesario in a multicultural version of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and as Heere Sharma in the two-part Anglo-Indian drama Second Generation, loosely based on Shakespeare's King Lear, directed by Jon Sen and starring Om Puri. Although Second Generation was a ratings flop, it was a critical success, earning a place in The Observer newspaper's top 10 British TV programmes of 2003.[citation needed] It garnered Nagra an Ethnic Multicultural Media Academy (EMMA) Award.[3] For the role, Nagra had to gain the courage to do some of the love scenes that she had vowed not to do as an actress.[citation needed] Her visit to Calcutta to film the final scenes set there was Nagra's first visit to India.[7]
While on a promotional junket in Los Angeles for Bend It Like Beckham, Nagra was informed by her agent that John Wells, one of the producers of the NBCmedical drama ER, was interested in meeting her.[3] Bend It Like Beckham writer and director Gurinder Chadha revealed during a 2007 episode of BBC's Movie Connections that she arranged the meeting, because she had recommended Nagra for the role of the new Indian character in ER during a conversation with her friend Wells.[citation needed] At their initial meeting, Wells made Nagra an offer to join the ensemble cast, which she accepted immediately. Recalling the moment, she said, "I had to sit still and act professional, while all the time I just wanted to jump up and run around the room screaming."[8] Not long after the meeting, Nagra signed a one-year contract that included an option for three additional years. Despite her new status, Nagra said, "I don't think Hollywood has changed me at all. The first thing I did when I arrived was buy chapati flour and lentils."[citation needed]
Nagra made her first appearance on ER on 25 September 2003, in the tenth-season premiere titled "Now What?" as Neela Rasgotra, a new Yale-educated Anglo-Indian medical student at County General Hospital. Wells adapted the role to suit Nagra, so she could use her own English accent while working. Nagra appeared in twenty-one of the season's twenty-two episodes, including the twelfth episode titled "NICU" and the seventeenth episode titled "The Student", episodes in which her character played a central role. Noah Wyle, announcing his departure from the series in 2004, described Nagra as "the future" of ER,[9]and the media concurred, anointing her as one of the show's "golden girls".[10] In October 2008, following the departures of Goran Visnjic, Maura Tierney, and Mekhi Phifer, Nagra became the longest-serving cast member and lead actor of ER and remained so until the series concluded with season 15: episode 22, the two-hour series finale titled "And in the End..." which aired on 2 April 2009.
When Nagra finished filming the eleventh season of ER in 2005, she returned to her native Leicester to star in Love in Little India directed by Amit Gupta.[11] She was nominated in 2006 for an Asian Excellence Award, in the category of Outstanding Female Television Performance, for her work in ER, and won the award the following year.[12] Nagra was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctors of Letters by the University of Leicester on 11 July 2007.[13] In 2008, Nagra voiced Cassandra in the DC animated film Batman: Gotham Knight. Then she co-starred as Dr Lucy Banerjee in the Fox science fiction drama series Alcatraz which ran for one season from 16 January to 26 March 2012.[14] Nagra starred as CIA agent Meera Malik in the first season of the NBC crime drama series The Blacklist from 2013 to 2014.[15] In 2016, Nagra joined the second season of British arctic psychological thriller Fortitude. In 2018, Nagra joined the second season of 13 Reasons Why as Priya Singh, the new counsellor of Liberty High.
== Personal life ==
While on the set of the Fair Ladies at a Game of Poem Cards, Nagra met Irish actor Kieran Creggan with whom she later moved into a flat in Kennington, South London. They dated for five years.[1]
On 17 January 2009, after a seven-year relationship, Nagra married photographer James Stenson. Her ER co-stars Scott Grimes and John Stamosperformed at the ceremony, and her friend and former ER co-star Maura Tierneyofficiated.[16] On 19 May 2009, she gave birth to their son Kai David Singh Stenson.[17] On 8 February 2012, it was reported that Nagra had filed for divorce.[18][19] The divorce was finalised in July 2013.[20]
Nagra was one of the bearers of the Olympic torch as it passed through London on its way to the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.[21]
== Filmography ==
Film
Year	Title 	Role 	Notes
1991	Dushmani Jattan Di 	 	
1998	King Girl 	Ayshe 	Television film
1999	Park Stories 	 	Short film
1999	Donovan Quick 	Radhika 	Television film
2002	The Swap 	Hotel Receptionist 	Television film
2002	Bend It Like Beckham 	Jesminder "Jess" Bhamra	
2003	Twelfth Night 	Viola 	Television film
2003	Second Generation 	Heere/Sonali Sharma 	Television film
2004	Ella Enchanted 	Areida 	
2005	Maya the Indian Princess	 	Voice role
2008	In Your Dreams 	Charlie 	
2008	Batman: Gotham Knight 	Cassandra 	Voice role
2008	Compulsion 	Anjika Indrani 	Television film
2011	Horrid Henry: The Movie 	Miss Lovely 	
2012	Twenty8k 	Deeva Jani 	
2014	Postman Pat: The Movie 	Nisha Bains 	Voice role
2018	Bird Box 	Dr. Lapham 	
Television
Year 	Title 	Role 	Notes
1996, 1998	Casualty 	Ayisha / Asha Guptah 	"Land of Hope" (season 10; episode 18)
"Next of Kin" (season 13; episode 11)
1997 	Turning World 	Sabina 	(season 1; episode 1)
(season 1; episode 2)
(season 1; episode 3)
2000 	Goodness Gracious Me 	Various 	(season 3: episode 2)
(season 3; episode 5)
2000 	Holby City 	Tina 	"The Trouble with the Truth" (season 3; episode 7)
2001 	Judge John Deed 	Ishbel McDonald 	"Exacting Justice" (Pilot)
2002 	Always and Everyone 	Sunita Verma 	(season 4; episode 1)
2003–2009 	ER 	Dr. Neela Rasgotra 	Series regular; 129 episodes
2010 	The Whole Truth 	Pilar Shirazee 	"Liars" (season 1; episode 6)
2012 	Alcatraz 	Dr. Lucille "Lucy" Banerjee	Series regular; 11 episodes
2012 	Tron: Uprising 	Ada 	Voice role
"Isolated" (season 1; episode 6)
2013 	Psych 	Rachael 	Recurring role; 4 episodes
2013–2014 	The Blacklist 	Meera Malik 	Series regular; 21 episodes
2015 	NCIS: Los Angeles 	Ella Desai 	"Expiration Date" (season 6; episode 16)
2016–2017 	Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.	Ellen Nadeer 	Recurring role; Season 4
2017–2018 	Fortitude 	Dr Surinder Khatri 	Main role; Series 2
Voice cameo; Series 3
2018 	13 Reasons Why 	Counselor Priya Singh 	Supporting cast; Season 2
2019 	Elementary 	Special AgentMallik 	2 episodes
Note: Despite similarities in name, this does not appear to be the same character as Meera Malik that Nagra portrayed in The Blacklist
== Awards ==
Year	Organisation 	Award/Category 	Result 	Work
2008	Asian Excellence Awards 	Outstanding television actress 	Nominated	ER
2007	Asian Excellence Awards 	Outstanding television actress 	Won 	ER
2006	Morgan Stanley Great Britons Awards 	Arts 	Nominated	
2005	South Asian Students' Alliance 	Recognition of Excellence Award
Outstanding Achievement in Acting (Female)	Won 	ER
2004	Teen Choice Awards 	Choice Breakout TV Star—Female 	Nominated	ER
2004	Ethnic Multicultural Media Awards 	Best Television Actress 	Won 	Second Generation(2003)
2004	Movieline Young Hollywood Awards 	Breakthrough Performance by a Female	Won 	Bend It Like Beckham(2002)
2004	Internet Movie Awards 	Best Breakthrough Performance 	Nominated	Bend It Like Beckham(2002)
2003	Empire Awards 	Best Newcomer 	Nominated	Bend It Like Beckham(2002)
2003	7th Annual Hollywood Film Festival Awards 	Hollywood Actress of the Year 	Nominated	Bend It Like Beckham(2002)
2003	Ethnic Multicultural Media Awards 	Best Actress (Film) 	Nominated	Bend It Like Beckham(2002)
2002	FIFA 	FIFA Presidential Award 	Won 	Bend It Like Beckham(2002)
2002	Bordeaux International Festival of Women in Cinema	Golden Wave
Best Actress
(Meilleure Comédienne Long Métrage)	Won 	Bend It Like Beckham(2002)
Tied with Keira Knightley
2002	British Independent Film Awards 	Most Promising Newcomer 	Nominated	Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
2002	European Film Awards 	Audience Award Best Actress 	Nominated	Bend It Like Beckham(2002)
2002	Carlton Multicultural Achievement Awards 	Film 	Nominated	Bend It Like Beckham(2002)