- Nina Wadia
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Nina Wadia 
Wadia at the 2011 National Television Awards.Born Mumbai, India Medium Actress, comedienne Years active 1991–present Spouse Raiomond Mirza (m. 1998–present) Nina Wadia is an Indian British actress.
Contents
Career
Television and film
Wadia first came to prominence in BBC sketch show Goodness Gracious Me, playing characters such as Mrs "I can make it at home for nothing!" and one half of The Competitive Mothers. She took over from her Goodness Gracious Me co-star, Meera Syal, in the role of Rupinder in the sitcom All About Me alongside Jasper Carrott and Natalia Kills.
In 2007, Wadia was cast as Zainab Masood in the long-running BBC soap opera EastEnders. She also had a minor role in the show in 1994, playing a nurse named Viv who treated Michelle Fowler (Susan Tully) when she was hospitalised with a gunshot wound. She also appears as Zainab in the 2010 spin-off EastEnders: E20.
Wadia has also made several guest appearances in various British comedies and dramas, such as 2point4 Children, The Vicar of Dibley, Thin Ice Chambers, Holby City, Murder in Mind and Doctors. She was a regular presenter on the ITV topical chat show, Loose Women (2005–2006). Wadia has most recently appeared in the E4 teen Comedy/Drama Skins, playing the mother of Anwar Kharral, and, in March 2008, she appeared in the BBC Three pilot West 10 LDN, she also appeared in New Tricks once. In 2011 Wadia appeared in Would I Lie To You?
Wadia played a wedding guest in the comedy film Bend It Like Beckham. She played a scene-stealing role as the housekeeper in the film I Can't Think Straight, directed by Shamim Sarif. The film revolves about two women from Indian and Palestinian upper-class immigrant communities in the UK who fall in love, and Wadia is the housekeeper who rebels at her high handed Palestinian employer in small ways. She also had a minor part in the film Code 46 (2003). She starred in a BFI/BBC film Sixth Happiness along with Firdaus Kanga in 1997. The film explores sexuality, disability and the Parsees, a small westernised minority in India, of which Wadia herself is a member. She has also starred alongside Rishi Kapoor playing his wife in a Bollywood film titled Namaste London.
She also voices the title role in Ethelbert the Tiger - a children's programme. She also had a role in Doctor Who as a doctor in the episode "The Eleventh Hour", the first episode of the reinvented 5th season of the long-running science fiction cult TV show. Her Goodness Gracious Me co-star, Meera Syal, would also appear in the series in the two-parter "The Hungry Earth" and "Cold Blood"
Stage and radio
Apart from the radio version of Goodness Gracious Me, her other radio work includes guesting on Parsons and Naylor’s Pull-Out Sections, as well as regular appearances in the BBC World Service soap opera Westway as the pharmacist Namita ul-Haq.
In 2002, Wadia was due to star in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Midnight's Children, based on Salman Rushdie's novel, but she quit only weeks before rehearsals were due to begin. There were rumours that her departure was prompted by offers of more lucrative and less demanding television work, although her agent denied this.[1]
Awards
Wadia won 'Best Comedy Performance' at the 2009 British Soap Awards. Additionally she won 'Best Onscreen Partnership' at the same awards ceremony for her onscreen relationship with Nitin Ganatra. In 2004 she won the Chairman's Award at the Asian Women awards.
Personal life
Wadia is married to the composer Raiomond Mirza. She met him in Canada and married him there in July 1998. They live in Staines, Surrey. Like Wadia, Mirza is also a Parsi and they had a traditional Parsi wedding.[2] The couple have two children, Tia and Aidan.
She was a student at Island School, Hong Kong.
Wadia was involved in the Pakistan Earthquake Appeal Concert and Fashion Show, at the Royal Albert Hall in 2005. She has also been involved in campaigning for Save the Children[3] and for increased organ donation from Asians in Britain.[4]
References
- ^ "Goodness Gracious Me star Nina walks out on the RSC", Evening Standard. URL last accessed on 2007-03-31.
- ^ "Question time - Nina Wadia: Goodness, gracious me; Nina Wadia is", Sunday Mirror. URL last accessed on 2007-03-31.
- ^ EastEnders star Nina Wadia swaps the postroom for the classroom in world record breaking attempt
- ^ Nina Wadia Pleads for More Asian Organ Donors
External links
Categories:- British comedians
- British actors of South Asian descent
- Living people
- Parsi people
- British soap opera actors
- People from Mumbai
- People from Staines
- British people of Parsi descent
- Indian emigrants to the United Kingdom
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
