Poorna Jagannathan
Biography
Poorna Jagannathan is a Tunisian producer and actress who was born in Tunis and grew up in several countries, among them India, Pakistan and Brazil. After 15 years working in advertising she left that career and trained at The Barrow Group. Her performance as a journalist in the Hindi film Delhi Belly (2011) won her a L'Oreal Femina Award for breakthrough performance. She played Safar Khan in the HBO miniseries The Night Of, drawing praise from critics, and Nalini Vishwakumar in the Netflix comedy Never Have I Ever. She was a creator, producer and performer of Nirbhaya, a testimonial play that opened at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013 and won an Amnesty International Award. Later she took a lead role as Lucky in the Hulu crime comedy Deli Boys, winning a 2025 Gotham Award, and appeared in the A24 film Share (2019).
53years old
Turns 54 on December 22in 70 days
- Born Tunis
- Star sign: CapricornFirst day of the sign, on the Sagittarius cusp
Movie Career
- Films
- 15
- Career span
- 17 years2007 to 2024
First and latest
Share
Did you know?!
A change of course
Before acting, Jagannathan spent 15 years in advertising at agencies including TBWA\Worldwide, Ogilvy and Deutsch Inc., then started her own consultancy, Cowgirls & Indians, and quit advertising for acting in 2016.
A first
Jagannathan played Nalini Vishwakumar in Mindy Kaling's Never Have I Ever, and critics praised her performance. Her portrayal of an Indian immigrant woman was seen as groundbreaking and a first for television.
Poorna Jagannathan movies on Netflix
Best known for
The films on Netflix they are best known for, with the part played in each.
Worked with
Poorna Jagannathan shares two films with Richard Kind, and one with each of the others. Pick a number on the chart or a name in the list to see the films they share.
Films together
Richard Kind's page
Kunaal Roy Kapur's page
John Malkovich's page
Tom Hanks's page
Christopher McDonald's page
Pierce Brosnan's page
All films by Jon Watts
James PonsoldtDirector, 1 film, 2017
All films by James Ponsoldt
All films by Peter Berg
Box office
What Poorna Jagannathan's films earned in cinemas worldwide.
Combined worldwide box office
$190 million
7 of the 15 films have a worldwide figure.
Of the 15 films: 7 worldwide figure; 3 us gross only; 4 never in cinemas; 1 streaming, short cinema run.
- 7Worldwide figure
- 3US gross only
- 4Never in cinemas
- 1Streaming, short cinema run
Top grosser
Highest grossing
The seven biggest films earned 100% of the total. The bars are drawn to scale.
- 1$66M34.8% of the total
- 2$46M24.2% of the total
- 3$41M21.3% of the total
- 4$18M9.5% of the total
- 5$14M7.5% of the total
- 6$3.5M1.8% of the total
- 7$1.6M0.8% of the total
