Parminder Nagra

Parminder Nagra was born on 5th October 1975 to Punjabi parents Sukha and Nashuter Nagra who emigrated to England in the 1960′s. She is the eldest of four siblings, having two brothers and a sister and she went to Northfield House Primary School in Leicester, and then Soar Valley College where she played viola in the youth orchestra. It is at Soar Valley where Parminder got her first taste of the theatre.

After college Parminder was an artistic director for Hathi Productions but was approached to try out as an actor, and after only a week of being in the chorus, switched to leading lady after the original lead dropped out. Parminder decided not to go to university and headed straight for London in pursuit of her dream of becoming an actor. She worked on various theatre productions in London and also had a few small TV parts for a few years before her big break finally came. In 2002, she starred alongside Keira Knightley as Jesminder Kaur Bhamra, or ‘Jess’ in Bend it Like Beckham. Parminder soon followed this up when she starred alongside Anne Hathaway in 2004 in Ella Enchanted.

In between those two acclaimed movies though, Parminder Nagra found her first big TV role, playing the part of Neela Rasgotra in ER. Starting with the show from it’s season 10 premiere in 2003, she stayed with the part until the show’s series finale in 2009. In 2006 Parminder Nagra was nominated for an Asian Excellence Award in the category of Outstanding Female Television Performance for her portrayal of Neela. In 2007 she won the award. She was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by the University of Leicester the same year.

In 2009 Nagra married her boyfriend of 7 years, photographer James Stenson and they had a son, Kai David Singh Stenson who was born on 19th May 2009. Unfortunately things didn’t work out and in February 2012, a divorce petition was filed.