Ananya Panday

Ananya Panday (born 30 October 1998) is an Indian actress who primarily works in Hindi films. A daughter of actor Chunky Panday, she began her acting career in 2019 with roles in the romantic comedies Student of the Year 2 and Pati Patni Aur Woh. These performances earned her the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut.

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Quick Facts Born, Occupation ...

Ananya Panday
Panday promoting Gehraiyaan in 2022
Born	(1998-10-30) 30 October 1998 (age 26) Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2019–present
Parent	Chunky Panday
Family	Panday family

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Panday's two subsequent films were poorly received, but she had a commercial success with a brief role in the comedy Dream Girl 2 (2023). Her performances as young women navigating the perils of urban life and technology in the dramas Gehraiyaan (2022) and Kho Gaye Hum Kahan (2023), the thriller CTRL (2024), and the comedy series Call Me Bae (2024) were well received.

Panday was born on 30 October 1998^[1][2] to actor Chunky Panday and costume designer Bhavana Pandey in Mumbai, Maharashtra. She has a younger sister named Rysa.^[3] 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.^[4] She has described her childhood as "very privileged and cushioned", and has said that she aspired to be an actress from a young age.^[5]

Pandey studied at Dhirubhai Ambani International School until 2017.^[6] She participated in Vanity Fair's Le Bal des débutantes event in Paris in 2017.^[7][8] When asked if she missed out on higher education, Panday described film sets as her film school.^[5]

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 Karan Johar's studio Dharma Productions.^[9] Writing for Scroll.in, Nandini Ramnath felt that Panday showed potential in an unremarkable film.^[10] The film did not perform well at the box-office.^[11] 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.^[12] India Today mentioned that Panday is "bland and boring with no spice."^[13] With a worldwide gross of ₹1.15 billion (US$14 million), it emerged as a commercial success.^[14][15] Panday won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut for her performance in both Student of the Year 2 and Pati Patni Aur Woh.^[16]

In 2020, Panday appeared in the action film Khaali Peeli, starring Ishaan Khatter.^[17][18] The film was released digitally on Zee Plex.^[19] She next appeared alongside Deepika Padukone, Siddhant Chaturvedi and Dhairya Karwa in the 2022 romantic drama Gehraiyaan, which released on Amazon Prime Video.^[20] Her performance was well-received,^[21] 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".^[22] Her final release of the year came with Vijay Deverakonda in Puri Jagannadh's action film Liger, a bilingual production in Hindi and Telugu.^[23][24] The film was a critical and commercial failure,^[25][26] with Panday's performance being panned.^[27]

In the spiritual sequel Dream Girl 2 (2023), Panday played the brief role of the love interest of Ayushmann Khurrana's character. The Times of India's Dhaval Roy dismissed her role and accent.^[28] It emerged as one of the year's highest-grossing Hindi films and became Panday's first to cross ₹1 billion (US$12 million) at the domestic box-office.^[29] 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.^[30] 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".^[31][32] The Indian Express evaluated that her urban roles in Gehraiyaan and Kho Gaye Hum Kahan suited the actress better than the ones she performed in commercial cinema such as Dream Girl 2.^[33] Panday was awarded a Filmfare OTT Award for Best Actor in a Film – Critics (Female) for her performance in Kho Gaye Hum Kahan.^[34]

In September 2024, Panday portrayed an ostracised fashion influencer in the Amazon Prime Video comedy series Call Me Bae, produced by Johar.^[35] She expressed how her foray into the comedic genre was "challenging", and emphasised the difficulty in having to headline a project rather than play a "reacting" role to the lead star.^[36] The series had a mixed reception from critics, but her performance was better received.^[37] Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com praised her comic timing in a role that mirrored the actress' own privilege.^[38] The Hindu's Shilajit Mitra analysed that her privileged characters in Gehraiyaan, Kho Gaye Hum Kahan and Call Me Bae were all "in her proximate wheelhouse".^[39] The following month, Panday starred in Vikramaditya Motwane's screenlife thriller CTRL for Netflix, which is about an influencer targeted by a malicious AI app.^[40] Nandini Ramnath of Scroll.in believed that after Kho Gaye Hum Kahan, she was once again "wholly convincing" as a Gen Z woman negatively affected by technology.^[41] Acknowledging it as her third consecutive urban-set, social media-centred project, Panday has expressed a desire for further career progression and to return to more commercial cinema.^[42]

Panday will continue her collaborations with Dharma Productions with the biopic Shankara, starring Akshay Kumar as C. Sankaran Nair,^[43] and the romance Chand Mera Dil alongside Lakshya.^[44]

Panday has frequently combated negative attention and online trolling, for being a beneficiary of nepotism within the Hindi film industry.^[37][45] 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."^[46] In 2019, she launched an initiative named So Positive to create awareness about social media bullying, prevent negativity and build a positive community.^[47] At the Economic Times Awards in 2019, the project was named Initiative of the Year.^[48]

Panday has subsequently ranked in The Times of India's "50 Most Desirable Women" list. She ranked 37th in 2019^[49] and 31st in 2020.^[50] Panday is a celebrity endorser for several brands, such as Lakme, Jimmy Choo, Gillette and Timex.^[51][52]