Parminder Nagra
Parminder Kaur Nagra (Punjabi: ??????? ??? ?????) (born October 5, 1975 in Leicester, England) is an English actress of Indian descent.
In the film, Bend It Like Beckham, Nagra plays Jesminder (Jess) Bhamra, a teenage Sikh football player who idolizes football superstar David Beckham and defies her traditional parents to pursue her dreams of playing football. The rough parallels to Nagra’s (and Chadha’s) own personal story are apparent. However, pulling off the role was no small feat considering that the then-26-year-old actress had never played football and was portraying a character nearly a decade younger than she was. An intensive ten-week training course emphasizing a Brazilian technique called Futebol de Salao, led by noted coach Simon Clifford, put Nagra through rigorous nine-hour-a-day workouts. The hard work paid off as Nagra learned to “bend” or curve the ball in flight, as she did in one particularly memorable backyard scene. In a nod to Nagra’s actual life, director Chadha wrote and incorporated a scene about Nagra’s scar into the film.
Nagra demonstrated that an unknown Asian actress could carry a hit film. For her efforts, the actress received much critical acclaim and a slew of professional accolades. Nagra became the first woman honoured as FIFA’s “International Football Personality of the Year” and garnered no less than nine acting award nominations from various film organizations for her performance in Bend It Like Beckham.
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