Pooja Kumar is an American actress of Indian descent who works in Tamil, Hindi, and English-language Indian films. After winning

Miss India USA Miss India USA is a beauty pageant for young women of Indian descent who are residents of the United States. The pageant was established in 1980 by the India Festival Committee headed by Dharmatma Saran. The winner of the Miss India USA pageant ...

in 1995, she pursued a career as an actress and producer. She has appeared in a number of American films and shows, including '' Man on a Ledge'', ''

Brawl in Cell Block 99 ''Brawl in Cell Block 99'' is a 2017 American neo-noir prison action thriller film directed and written by S. Craig Zahler and starring Vince Vaughn with Jennifer Carpenter, Don Johnson, Udo Kier, Marc Blucas, and Tom Guiry. The story follows ...

'', ''

Bollywood Hero ''Bollywood Hero'' was an American television miniseries that aired on the IFC in three parts on August 6–8, 2009. The miniseries were shot in Mumbai and Los Angeles. The show is a musical miniseries about Chris Kattan and his journey to ...

'', ''

Flavors Flavor or flavour is either the sensory perception of taste or smell, or a flavoring in food that produces such perception. Flavor or flavour may also refer to: Science *Flavors (programming language), an early object-oriented extension to Li ...

'', ''Hiding Divya'', ''Park Sharks'', '' Bollywood Beats'', '' Night of Henna'', ''Anything for You'', ''Drawing with Chalk'', and ''Knots Urbane''. Her Indian films include ''Vishwaroopam'', and '' Vishwaroopam 2'' opposite actor

Kamal Haasan Kamal Haasan (born 7 November 1954) is an Indian actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, playback singer, television presenter and politician who works mainly in Tamil cinema and has also appeared in some Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada and Bengali f ...

, and ''

Uttama Villain ''Uttama Villain'' () is a 2015 Indian Tamil-language comedy drama film directed by Ramesh Aravind and written by Kamal Haasan. The film was presented by N. Lingusamy in association with Kamal Haasan and produced by S. Chandrahasan for Raaj ...

''. These were shot simultaneously in Hindi and Tamil. She made her Telugu debut with ''

PSV Garuda Vega ''PSV Garuda Vega'' is a 2017 Indian Telugu-language action spy thriller film written and directed by Praveen Sattaru. The film is produced by M. Koteswara Raju and stars Rajasekhar, Pooja Kumar, Adith Arun, Shraddha Das, and Kishore, while ...

'', starring Rajasekhar.

Early life

Kumar was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents immigrated from India in 1970. She attended

Washington University Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

, where she graduated with degrees in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...

and

finance Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of f ...

. She is also trained in Indian classical dance. Kumar won

in 1995.

Career

Kumar first signed on to appear in director

Keyaar Kothanda Ramaiah (also known as K.R and Keyaar) is an Indian Tamil film director, producer, distributor and exhibitor. He has held various leading positions in different film industry organizations. Career KR studied film processing at the Ad ...

's Tamil film '' Kadhal Rojave'' in 1997, but the film's production delays meant that it was only released in 2000 and her stint as an actress in the Tamil film industry went unnoticed. She was earlier signed and then left out of the 1997 film '' V. I. P'', while she had also signed to appear alongside Karthik in Chithra Lakshmanan's ''

Chinna Raja ''Chinna Raja'' is a 1999 Indian Tamil-language thriller film directed and produced by Chitra Lakshmanan. The film stars Karthik in dual lead roles whilst Roja, Priya Raman and Manivannan play supporting roles. The film released on 12 Februa ...

'', but was eventually dropped from the project. In 2003, she received the

Screen Actors Guild The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to me ...

Emerging Actress Award for ''Flavors''. In 2008, she hosted a late-night live

quiz show A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or demonstrative and are typically directed by a host, s ...

Zee TV Zee TV (stylised as ZEE TV) is a Hindi general entertainment pay television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-ba ...

in India, known as ''Jaago Aur Jeeto''. She appeared in the musical comedy miniseries ''

'' on IFC in 2008. She starred opposite ''

Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves ...

'' comedian

Chris Kattan Christopher Lee Kattan () (born October 19, 1970) is an American actor and comedian. He was a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live'' from 1996 to 2003. He played Doug Butabi in ''A Night at the Roxbury'', Bob on the first four seasons of '' The M ...

in the three-part series. In the late 2000s, she appeared in the Pakistani drama serial ''

Ishq Junoon Deewangi ''Ishq Junoon Dewangi'' ( ur, , lit=Love Passion Madness) is a Pakistani drama serial that aired on Hum TV in 2009. It was written and produced by Momina Duraid while directed by Babar Javed. The serial tells the story of a couple, when a dire ...

'' on

Hum TV Hum TV is a 24-hour Urdu General Entertainment TV channel based in Karachi, Pakistan. It was founded by Sultana Siddiqui and Duraid Qureshi. It is owned by Hum Network Limited and traded on Pakistan Stock Exchange as (HUMNL). Hum Network L ...

. After a long gap, she reappeared onscreen in the film ''Viswaroopam''.

Personal life

Kumar is married to Vishal Joshi. They have a daughter born in 2020.

Selected filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

*
"Pooja Kumar the face of Bombay Dreams"
Rediff – 10 February 2004 * Rohit, Parimal M
"Pooja Kumar – The New Heroine: Rising Star Ready for Primetime with 'Bollywood Hero'"
''Bollywood Buzzine'' July 2009 {{DEFAULTSORT:Kumar, Pooja 1977 births Living people Actresses from St. Louis Female models from Missouri American film actresses American television actresses American female models American actresses of Indian descent American female models of Indian descent American expatriate actresses in India Actresses in Hindi cinema Actresses in Tamil cinema Actresses in Telugu cinema 21st-century American actresses