Nina Wadia

Last updated 09 January 2020

Nina Wadia
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Nina Wadia

Born: Wednesday 18th December 1968 (age: 55)

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Nina Wadia is an Indian British actress, best known for playing Zainab Masood in the British soap opera EastEnders.

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 Meco-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 ChildrenThe Vicar of DibleyThin Ice ChambersHolby CityMurder 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".

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 pharmacistNamita ul-Haq.

In 2001, Wadia voiced he role of Ariel in a BBC Radio 3 production of The Tempest.

Biography from the Wikipedia article, licensed under CC-BY-SA