Ananya Panday

Ananya Panday (born 30 October 1998) is an Indian actress who primarily works in Bollywood films. The daughter of actor Chunky Panday, she began her acting career in 2019 with roles in the teen film Student of the Year 2 and the comedy Pati Patni Aur Woh. These performances earned her the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. Her two subsequent films were poorly received, but she had a commercial success with a brief role in the comedy Dream Girl 2 (2023) and her performances in the dramas Gehraiyaan (2022) and Kho Gaye Hum Kahan (2023) were well-received.

Early life and family
Panday was born on 30 October 1998 to actor Chunky Panday and costume designer Bhavana Pandey in Mumbai, Maharashtra. She has a younger sister named Rysa. Her grandfather Sharad Panday, was an Indian heart surgeon. Her uncle Chikki Panday is a businessperson and her aunt Deanne Pandey is a wellness coach.

Pandey studied at Dhirubhai Ambani International School until 2017. She participated in Vanity Fair's Le Bal des débutantes event in Paris in 2017.

Career


Panday made her acting debut in 2019 with the teen film Student of the Year 2, co-starring Tiger Shroff and Tara Sutaria, which was produced by Dharma Productions. Writing for Scroll.in, Nandini Ramnath felt that Panday showed potential in an unremarkable film. The film did not perform well at the box-office. Panday next starred in Pati Patni Aur Woh (2019), a remake of the 1978 film of the same name, alongside Kartik Aaryan and Bhumi Pednekar. She played a secretary who indulges in an affair with a married man, which was portrayed by Ranjeeta Kaur in the original. India Today mentioned that Pandey is "bland and boring with no spice." With a worldwide gross of inr 1150000000, it emerged as a commercial success. Panday won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut for her performance in both Student of the Year 2 and Pati Patni Aur Woh.

In 2020, Panday appeared in the action film Khaali Peeli, starring Ishaan Khatter. The film was released digitally on Zee Plex. Panday next appeared alongside Deepika Padukone, Siddhant Chaturvedi and Dhairya Karwa in the 2022 noir romantic drama Gehraiyaan, which released on Amazon Prime Video. Her performance was well-received, with Anna M. M. Vetticad from Firstpost writing, "The surprise in this ensemble is Panday who brings a gravitas to Tia's confusion and innocence that makes you wonder why she chose to debut with the hollow gloss of Student of the Year 2". Her final release of the year came with Vijay Deverakonda in Puri Jagannadh's action film Liger, a bilingual production in Hindi and Telugu. The film was a critical and commercial failure, with Panday's performance being panned.

In 2023, Panday briefly played the leading lady in the spiritual sequel Dream Girl 2, starring Ayushmann Khurrana. The Times of India's Dhaval Roy dismissed her role and accent. Panday then starred in Kho Gaye Hum Kahan, a coming-of-age drama about the negative effects of social media, alongside Chaturvedi and Adarsh Gourav. Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV wrote that she "does a fair enough job of a character stuck in a single-note loop", while Scroll.in's Udita Jhunjhunwala found her "highly convincing as the jilted obsessive stalker seeking social media validation".

Panday will star in Vikramaditya Motwane's cyber thriller, Control and in an Amazon Prime Video series named Call Me Bae. She will also continue her collaborations with Dharma Productions with the period film Shankara, starring Akshay Kumar.

Media image
Panday has frequently combated negative attention and online trolling, for being a beneficiary of nepotism within the Hindi film industry. She said, "It isn't as easy as people say it is. If you have access and don't have the talent to back it up, people won't invest their money in you. Having said that, I do believe nepotism exists and it exists in all industries, not just Bollywood." In 2019, she launched an initiative named So Positive to create awareness about social media bullying, prevent negativity and build a positive community. At the Economic Times Awards 2019, the project was named Initiative of the Year.

Panday has subsequently ranked in Times' 50 Most Desirable Women list. She ranked 37th in 2019 and 31st in 2020. Panday is a celebrity endorser for several brands such as Lakme, Jimmy Choo, Gillette and Timex.

Films

 * All films are in Hindi unless otherwise noted.