Neena Gupta

At 64 years old, Neena Gupta has this physical status:

Neena Gupta (born 4 June 1959) is an Indian actress and television producer.

In 1995, she gained the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing a young widow in Woh Chokri (1994).

In 2018, she gained acclaim for her role as a middle-aged pregnant woman in Badhaai Ho, where she was honoured for Best Actress and named Kamzor Kaun in the Indian version of the television quiz show The Weakest Link.

Early life and education

Neena Gupta was born in Calcutta, India, on June 4th, 1959, she was an LLB and an officer of the State Trading Corporation of India, and Shakuntala Devi, a retired teacher with double masters degrees in Sanskrit and Political Science.

She grew up in New Delhi's Karol Bagh neighborhood, where she spent her elementary education at the Bal Bharti School and secondary schooling at Vidya Bhawan. She earned a BA in Janki Devi Mahavidyalaya and a Master in Sanskrit from Delhi University. She obtained an MPhil from the same University for her research on "Stage Techniques in Sanskrit Drama: Theory and Practice." She gave up doing her research midway through her PhD in Sanskrit due to a difference of opinion between her guide and her.

While at University, she was involved in theatre, meeting a close friendship with fellow actor Satish Kaushik, who encouraged her to follow his example and enroll the National School of Drama. In 1977, Gupta began attending NSD, under the tutelage of such as Ebrahim Alkazi and B.V. Karanth, and she descended on the top of her class. Alok Nath and Annu Kapoor are among the institute's contemporaries.

Personal life

While still an undergraduate, Gupta married Amlan Kusum Ghose, who was enrolled at IIT-Delhi. The marriage was short-lived, with both of them mutually and amicably agreeing to part ways within a year. She was briefly engaged to Shaarangdev, the son of Pandit Jasraj's son. In the late 1980s, she was in a friendship with former West Indies cricketer Vivian Richards. Despite the fact that they never married, Masaba Gupta was born in 1989. Gupta raised Masaba on her own as a single mother since Richards was already married. In 2008, Gupta married Vivek Mehra, a New Delhi-based chartered accountant, in a private ceremony in the United States.

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Career

Gupta has appeared in several international films, including Gandhi (1982), in which she played the niece of Mahatma Gandhi, and Merchant Ivory films, such as Gandhi (1988), In Custody (1993), and Cotton Mary (1999). She has appeared in Indian parallel cinemas including Mandi (1983), Rihae (1988), Drishti (1990), and Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda (1992). These appearances have helped her establish her place in Indian cinema alongside her arthouse film coworkers Rekha, Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, and Dimple Kapadia. Despite this, Gupta never had a major corporate success and found it difficult to find more challenging roles:

Her appearance in Hindi films was particularly notable in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, in which she appeared as a secretary to Pankaj Kapoor. She appeared in Khalnayak (1993) with Madhuri Dixit; she was also featured in the film "Choli Ke Peeche" ("Chil Ke Peeche." Lajwanti and Bazar Sitaram (1993), which received the 1993 National Film Award for Best First Non-Feature Film, she has made television films. Gupta's breakthrough came in the acclaimed drama Woh Chokri as a recently widowed daughter-in-law; her appearance received a National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1994.

"I live in Mumbai and looking for good parts to play," Gupta wrote on Instagram in 2017. "I got many calls after that Instagram post, five in fact, and I accepted all of them." There's no shame in saying you don't have work." Badhaai Ho (2018), Amit Sharma's comedy-drama, was one of the nine top-grossing Bollywood films of 2018. Her performance as a middle-aged pregnant mother received soaring critical acclaim, with several commentators and publications praising her work as the film's highlight and one of her career's finest performances. Rajeev Masand praised Gupta for "deep sympathy" to the role, while Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV described her performance as "outstandingly measured." Gupta, her acting counterpart, received many accolades for her role, including the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress (Critics), and the BFJA Award for Best Supporting Actor - Female. After Sharmila Tagore, she became the second-eldest Best Actress nominee in Filmfare Award history at 60.

Gupta appeared in Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari's sports comedy-drama Panga in 2020 and has collaborated with Ayushmann Khurana for Shubh Mangal Zyavdhan, earning her a Filmfare Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. For the upcoming thriller 'Dial 100', Neena Gupta will appear alongside Manoj Bajpayee and Sakshi Tanwar. Manju Devi Pradhan made an appearance in Amazon Prime's Panchayat as Manju Devi Pradhan. She appeared in season 2 of the same in 2022 as the same person.

Mirza Ghalib (1985), Yatra (1986), Gulzar's Mirza Ghalib (1989), Dard (1995), Sanit Ka Jawab Nahin (2004). Buniyaad is also a television series actress who has appeared in television dramas.

She appeared in Jassi Jaissi Kaun, which gave her a lot of success, as well as the Indian version of the TV show The Weakest Link.

Saans (1999), Siski in 2000, and Kyun Hota Hai Pyarrrr have all been successful TV series. Shubha, one of the four female main leads in Ladies Special, a daily soap on Sony television, starred her in Shubha. She is now seen in Dil se Diya Vachan as a doctor by trade and mother-in-law of the lead character Nandani, which airs on Zee TV.

She co-founded 'Sahaj Productions' with actor Rajendra Gupta and performed as well as directing the Hindi film Soorya Ki Paheli Kiran Tak. She appeared in Rishtey, which was also on Zee television from 1999 to 2000.

She has also worked on Masaba Masaba, a Netflix show based on her and her daughter Masaba Gupta, who is a designer by trade.

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