Full Name: Freida Pinto
Occupation: Actress / Model
Date of Birth: October 18, 1984
Place of Birth: Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Age: 25
Hair / Eyes: Brown / Brown
Family: Mother Sylvia Pinto (a principal of St. John’s High School), Father Frederick Pinto (a senior branch manager at the Bank of Baroda) and older sister Sharon Pinto (an associate producer on the NDTV news channel).
Claim to Fame: Playing Latika in Slumdog Millionaire.
Freida Pinto was born in Mumbai, India, on October 18, 1984. Her father is a banker, while her mother is the principal of a High School. Her sister, Sharon, is a producer at the Indian news channel, NDTV. Freida earned a bachelor’s degree in English at the St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai, and got recruited by the Elite model agency in India at age 20. She has then done campaigns for such companies as Chanel, Visa and eBay.
In 2006-2007, she anchored the TV travel show Full Circle, and visited several Asian countries such as Afghanistan, Fiji, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.
Freida always knew she wanted to be an actress, professional or not. Though with the high standards of India’s response to Hollywood – Bollywood – it’s very difficult to get ahead. As Freida put it: “You have to be a child of an actor or actress, or have a godfather.”
Her one in a life time-chance came with Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, which was to be filmed in the city of Mumbai, India. When Boyle saw Freida’s tape he immediately asked for her to come to the audition. But since she had no acting experience, they put her through an entire process of auditioning for six months. “The first time I read with the casting director and the second time on it was with Danny Boyle. I would go in probably once a month, sometimes twice a month and every time I’d go in for an audition Danny would say ‘Fantastic. I’ll see you again’. So every time he said that I’d say, ‘Okay, maybe in three days’. 30 days! He’d just keep me waiting for 30 days. I think every time I went in was fun. I’m not complaining because I think it was literally like going to an acting school and I think it was necessary because since I had absolutely no acting experience besides the amateur theatre that I’d done.”
Boyle followed his gut feeling and Freida was cast as Latika, the long-lost love interest of the movie’s main character, Jamal (played by the talented Dev Patel). “I put 23 years of research into this film, not knowing I was going to play this part”, Freida said. When Slumdog Millionaire premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival in September 2008, the movie and its stars received rave reviews. Viewers have described the movie with words as “a masterpiece” and “one in a million”. And it truly is.
Already at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, Freida received the “People’s Choice” award, and has since then been honored with a “Breakthrough Performance” award at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards as well as a BAFTA nomination for “Best Supporting Actress”. Slumdog Millionaire itself was nominated for practically every major award at every ceremony, and won Golden Globes for “Best Motion Picture – Drama”, “Best Director”, “Best Original Screenplay” and “Best Adapted Screenplay”. The Oscar buzz continued to surround the movie as it won all the major awards at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Writers Guild Awards, Directors Guild Awards and the U.K. based BAFTA Awards. So on Oscar-night, February 22 2009, it was no surprise to see it win eight of the ten awards it was nominated for. Among them was Best Movie, Best Director, Best Screenplay and more.
Not only the movie itself was the hot topic during award season, but the relationship between Freida Pinto and co-star Dev Patel as well. Were they dating or not? During dussins of interviews they both said “only friends”. But it was later to be confirmed that they were, indeed, in love as the pair confirmed the rumors to be true by attending several events holding hands and kissing. Freida and Dev are still going strong, with Freida saying “Well, like I say, there’s Skype, but we also know that to make it work we have to meet in the middle. If one of us has time off, they’ll fly over and make the most of it. It’s an excuse to see new places all the time.” about their long-distance relationship.
On the night of the Oscars Freida announced that she would star in a movie directed and written by Woody Allen. The movie, later revealed to be titled You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, was filmed in London, England during the summer of 2009. Also starring are Naomi Watts, Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Lucy Punch and Gemma Jones. The movie premiered to mostly good reviews at the Cannes Film Festival on May 15, 2010. Due to filming commitments Freida wasn’t able to attend the world famous film festival, but she did promote the movie at the Toronto Film Festival in September. When talking about when she met Allen, Freida said “I would describe my meeting with Woody Allen as ‘different’. He’s a shy and reticent director but one with a beautiful vision. It’s a dream-come-true since I was a literature student and I studied Woody Allen’s plays back in college.”
Freida kept busy the entire spring of 2009 as well, as she filmed the movie Miral in Jerusalem. The film is directed by Julian Schnabel and centers around Hind Husseini’s effort to establish an orphanage in Jerusalem after the 1948 partition of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. Freida Pinto portrays the title character of Miral. The movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 2, 2011. Miral is about Hind Husseini who comes across 55 orphaned children in the street. She takes them home to give them food and shelter. Within six months, 55 had grown to almost 2000, and the Dar Al-Tifel Institute was born. Then, at the age of 7, Miral is sent to the Institute by her father following her mother’s death. Brought up safely inside the Institute’s walls, she is naïve to the troubles that surround her. Then, at 17, she is assigned to teach at a refugee camp where she is awakened to the reality of her people’s struggle. When she falls for political activist, Hani, she finds herself torn between the fight for the future of her people and Mama Hind’s belief that education is the road to peace. On what drew her to the movie, Freida said “The moment I read the script, I fell in love with the story, because it wasn’t just a story about four women; it was a story of the people of Israel and Palestine. I felt if there were any way I could be part of this peacemaking process by lending a human touch to the character, I wanted to be involved. I wish people would [remember]that there are children and soldiers dying on both sides. You can’t ignore the politics, but hopefully that won’t become the focus of the film.”
The movie was faced with some tough reviews due to it’s touchy subject about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Director Julian Schnabel had a hard time fighting for a the rating he thought the movie deserved, as MPAA wanted to give it an R-rating. After a lot of struggling, the movie finally got the PG-13 Schnabel wanted. Miral wasn’t even given a chance with the audience as it never went into a wider release than 29 theaters. Despite this, Miral has been given some rave reviews as well, especially from actor Johnny Depp who said “Julian Schnabel’s film is a unique and courageous glimpse into one woman’s painful journey. It is an epic peom teetering on the dge of a dagger. See it an decide to yourself.” Actor Javier Bardem was also one of the fighters for the movie, saying “The beauty of Julian Schnabel, he creates art that inspires discussion for world leaders & also touches the rest of us mere mortals on a very human and primitive level.”
In February 2010 Variety reported that Freida were to take part in yet another movie; War of the Gods. She plays Phaedra, an oracle priestess who must join Theseus (played by Henry Cavill) on his quest to prevent the cataclysmic war between the gods from erupting. This project, directed by Tarsem Singh, started filming in April in Montreal, Canada. The film would later be renamed Immortals and have cast members such as Mickey Rourke, Isabel Lucas, Stephen Dorff, Luke Evans, Kellan Lutz and more. Immortals is scheduled for a release on November 11, 2011.
But this wasn’t enough for Freida, as she’s contnued straight from the sets of Immortals to start filming the prequel to Planet of the Apes, called Rise of the Planet of the Apes. She portrays the primatologist Caroline in the “origin story set in present day San Francisco, where man’s own experiments with genetic engineering lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy”. The movie also stars James Franco, John Lithgow, Brian Cox and Andy Serkins. Rise of the Apes will be released on August 5, 2011.
Another project set to be released in the near future is Black Gold, set in the 1930s Arab states at the dawn of the oil boom, about a young Arab prince torn between allegiance to his conservative father and modern, liberal father-in-law. In the movie, Freida portrays princess Lallah alongside Antonio Banderas, Mark Strong, Tahir Rahim and Riz Ahmed. The movie was filmed in Tunisia during the civil war, with Freida describing the filming as “Terrifying. People were burning down shops and malls; there was killing and bloodshed. I was stuck in this massive hotel with 354 rooms and only six guests. The lights kept shutting down, and there was a 5:00 P.M. curfew. But I wasn’t there by myself: Dev came down to see me. I was so glad I had company.” Black Gold is set to premiere at the 2011 Doha International Film Festival later this year.
Freida’s also starring in the new movie Trishna, once again acting against Riz Ahmed. Trishna is the story of the tragic relationship between the son (Riz Ahmed) of a property developer and the daughter (Freida Pinto as Trishna) of an auto rickshaw owner. Look forward to this movie in 2012.
Freida’s blossoming movie career isn’t all she’s got going for her; during the ’09 award season Miss Pinto emerged as a style-icon, having the most raved and talked-about outfits of the season. In March 2009 she was invited to sit front row at the Fashion Week in Paris and Milan. But her fashion-related career didn’t stop there, as she was announced as a new spokesmodel for L’Oreal Paris later in 2009. “I am very moved to be joining the great L’Oreal Paris family and all these personalities: a family I am now proud to be a part of”, Freida said of joining the worldwide beauty brand. Since then she’s appeared in several different campaigns worldwide for L’Oreal, including the ‘Renewal Lash Serum’ mascara, ‘Go 360˚ Clean’ face-wash, ‘Elvive Nutri-Gloss’ shampoo and more. In 2011 Freida co-hosted the brand’s annual Cinema Against AIDS Gala during the Cannes Film Festival.
“After this success, I still consider myself to be a regular Mumbai girl. I’m just one that has been extremely blessed.” Not knowing what the future holds for her, Freida recently signed with one of the leading talent agencies in the world – CAA. She dreams of one day star be able to work with seasoned actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp. “I think they are simply fantastic and so versatile. I would love to do a dark romantic film with Johnny Depp.” I think it’s safe to say that this star isn’t done rising yet.
Source:http://www.freidapintofan.com/
Photos:http://www.maxim.com/
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