Poorna Jagannathan (born December 22, 1972) is an Indian-American actress and producer. She portrays Sanjana Mirza on Netflix's Messiah.
Biography[]
Jagannathan was born in Tunis, Tunisia, and grew up in Pakistan, Ireland, India, Brazil and Argentina. She graduated in journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park after doing some college at the University of Brasília, Brazil. On a scholarship, she began her Master of Fine Arts in acting at the Actors Studio Drama School.
She is best known for her portrayal of Safar Khan in HBO's Emmy-nominated show, "The Night Of", as well as playing the lead in the Bollywood cult comedy film "Delhi Belly". She also initiated and produced the play "Nirbhaya", written and directed by Yael Farber, which dealt with breaking the silence around sexual violence. Her play won the '2013 Amnesty International Award' and was called by The Telegraph as the "One of the most powerful pieces of theater you'll ever see". Jagannathan was featured among the top 10 in Femina magazine's "India's 50 most beautiful women" in 2012, and in 2014, she was named among the top 50 most powerful women in India. She was most recently a series regular on Naomi Watts/Netflix series, "Gypsy", and part of the ensemble cast for HBO's new anthology series, "Room 104", by the Duplass brothers. Her new film, directed by Pippa Bianco and produced by A24, releases in 2018. She is also part of the cast for Season 2 of HBO's critically acclaimed show, "Big Little Lies".
Credits[]
Season 1[]
External links[]
Follow Poorna Jagannathan (@poornajags) on Twitter
Follow Poorna Jagannathan (@poornagraphy_) on Instagram
Gallery[]