Film/Stage
Sikh-Brit Actress Bags an Emmy
by HEIDI BLAKE
On an otherwise disappointing night for British talent, Archana Kaur - better known by her screen name, Archie Panjabi - won the best supporting actress award for her role as the straight-talking private detective Kalinda Sharma in the U.S. drama The Good Wife.
The 38-year-old, who made her name in the British hit films East is East and Bend it Like Beckham, appeared elated as she accepted the prestigious U.S. television award.
She said: "When I started in the business in England, just getting a job was a dream. And to receive an Emmy now is just beyond my wildest dreams."
Panjabi, whose family emigrated to London from India before she was born, is among only a handful of Sikh performers ever to have won an Emmy.
But she has told how her strict family were less than supportive when she announced her aspiration to become an actress because the profession is considered "lowly" in India.
"We did have a few arguments because I wanted to go to drama school," she said previously.
"When I was younger a friend of my mother said that this business was only for prostitutes. I thought, Oh my God, do I label myself as that?"
But she added that her parents had ultimately agreed to support her ambition on the condition that she went to university first.
Her 2:1 in management studies from Brunel may not have contributed much to her meteoritic success as an actress, but her parents' scepticism about showbusiness appears to have helped keep her feet on the ground.
Panjabi said in a recent interview that her favourite pastime is "simply relaxing with a candle and a book," adding: "simple things are so important because I think in this industry ... it's like being part of a bubble."
"This business, it chews a lot of people up. It's one of the hardest professions in the world to maintain any kind of stability. But my spirituality helps with that."
In her acceptance speech at the ceremony in Los Angeles she paid tribute to Angelina Jolie, with whom she worked on the 2007 film A Mighty Heart.
She said backstage that the US actress was "incredibly grounded" and a "big inspiration".
The British actress Julia Ormond also won a supporting actor trophy at the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards for her role in Temple Grandin, the biopic based on the life of a gifted, autistic animal sciences expert.
The film, which was directed by her fellow Briton Mick Jackson, was also honoured as best TV movie at the ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday night.
But Hugh Laurie, Dame Judi Dench, Michael Sheen and Sir Ian McKellen were among the big British names who went home empty handed.
Mad Men, the period advertising drama, took top honours with the coveted best drama series gong.
[Courtesy: The Telegraph]
September 1, 2010
Conversation about this article
1: Bal Singh (London, United Kingdom), September 07, 2010, 5:57 PM.
Congratulations on her success, though I'm not sure if she is Sikh.