Indian actress Freida Pinto gained recognition across the globe after starring in her first motion picture, “Slumdog Millionaire.” She was forced to continue her education till she graduated at the age of twenty, despite her childhood desire of becoming an actor since she was five years old. She was raised in an educated middle-class household in Mumbai. She then started her modeling career by signing with Elite Model Management. She began holding tryouts concurrently for parts in movies and television shows, but she was never cast until she was selected to anchor “Full Circle” in 2007. She went through a demanding six-month audition process with Danny Boyle the following year, and she was ultimately chosen for the part of Latika in “Slumdog Millionaire.” Despite the narrow focus, she left her imprint. She has since made appearances in a number of American and British productions, garnering significant recognition for her performances as Elaheh in “Desert Dancer” and as the title character in “Trishna.” She is a strong advocate for women’s and children’s rights and participates in humanitarian activities.
Early Life & Childhood of Freida Pinto
On October 18, 1984, in the Indian city of Mumbai, then known as Bombay, Freida Selena Pinto was born into a middle-class Catholic family from Mangalore.
Frederick Pinto, her father, held a top position at the Bank of Baroda. Sylvia Pinto, her mother, was the principal of Mumbai’s St. John’s Universal School until her retirement. Sharon, her older sister, works as a producer at NDTV, an Indian news station.
Malad, a middle-class area in North Mumbai, is where Freida was raised. She was assigned to the same neighborhood’s Carmel of St. Joseph School for her education. As a boisterous young child, she was very interested in athletics and sang in the chorus for school programs.
Despite coming from a middle-class background, she opted to pursue acting as a career at the age of five after discovering a passion for it early in life. She used to dress and act like television stars when she was younger.
Ten-year-old Freida was ecstatic when Susmita Sen won the Miss Universe beauty contest in 1994, making history as the first Indian woman to do so. Freida chose to follow in Sen’s footsteps after discovering her as her role model.
Following her graduation from high school, Freida enrolled at Mumbai’s St. Xavier’s College. She majored in English in college and minored in psychology and economics.
She participated in theater while she was a college student. However, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to pursue acting as a career until 2004. However, she knew she wanted to do something similar after watching “Monster,” a biographical crime drama film written and directed by Patty Jenkins.
Early Professional Life of Freida Pinto
Freida Pinto received her B.A. from the University of Mumbai, which St. Xavier College was associated with, in 2005. She soon started working as a model, eventually signing with Elite Model Management, and making appearances in a number of print and television ads.
Early in her career, she appeared in advertisements for a number of well-known companies, including De Beers, eBay, Vodafone India, Airtel, Koda, and Wrigley’s Chewing Gum. She had little success, meanwhile, in her acting career. Despite her repeated appearances at television and film auditions, she was turned down by each one.
She was selected to host “Full Circle,” a global travel program that aired on Zee International Asia Pacific in 2006, which allowed her to go to many new places, including Afghanistan, Fiji, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. She stayed with the show until 2008, but in 2007 something significant happened in her life.
Pinto was one of seven women whose names were submitted when the “Slumdog Millionaire” producers asked her modeling agency to provide the names of some aspiring actors in 2007. She underwent a torturous six months of tryouts before being chosen to portray “Latika.”
Pinto had never taken acting classes, despite her prior involvement in amateur productions. For this reason, she will never forget the six months she spent trying out for Danny Boyle. She later participated in a three-month training at “The Barry John’s Acting Studio,” where she picked up some technical skills.
“Slumdog Millionaire” was an enormous hit when it was first shown at the Telluride Film Festival on August 30, 2008. However, because of her extremely little role, Freida Pinto did not receive any critical attention. She was still able to leave her impact on the movie business, though.
With the success of Slumdog Millionaire, Pinto’s career took off, and by 2009, she was a style icon, attending Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks. Her attire during the 2009 Oscar ceremony generated a lot of discussion. She was chosen to be a spokesperson for L’Oreal Paris later that year.
In 2010, Pinto released two films: “Miral,” a political biographical picture directed by Julian Schnabel, and “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” an American comedy-drama starring Woody Allen. She played the part of Dia in the first movie, and the title character in the second.
She released four films in 2011. Her debut role was as Caroline Aranha, a primatologist who falls in love with the hero in the science fiction movie “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” Despite earning US$481.8 million at the box office, her role was critiqued for being flat.
“Day of the Falcon,” “Immortals,” and “Trishna” were her other three 2011 releases. Despite receiving favorable reviews for her performances, Pinto’s films didn’t perform very well at the box office, and for the following two years, she was without a new release.
She acted as narrator in the semi-documentary “Girl Rising” (2013), which chronicled the struggles of nine girls from nine different countries in overcoming societal and cultural boundaries. She also had an appearance in Bruno Mars’ music video for “Gorilla” that same year.
She made a comeback to the big screen in 2014 with the film “Desert Dancer,” where she portrayed the heroin addict Elaheh, the primary character’s love interest. She received rigorous dancing training to play the part. Despite unfavorable reviews for the movie, she won accolades for her performance.
The experimental film “Knight of Cups,” which was filmed two years prior, was released at the start of 2015. The films “Blunt Force Trauma,” “Black Night Decoded,” and “Unity” were also released in the same year; the last was a documentary in which she acted as a narrator.
She made a comeback to television in 2015 as a guest star on the American romantic comedy “The Mindy Project.” She co-hosted the BBC environmental documentary series “India: Nature’s Wonderland” with Liz Bonnin and John Gupta starting in September.
She made appearances in the short films “Past Forward” and “Two Bellmen Two” in 2016. In 2017, she portrayed Geta in the animated feature “Yamasong: March of the Hollows” and made an appearance as Jas Mitra in the six-part British drama miniseries “Guerrilla,” which was based in London in the early 1970s.
Her film “Love Sonia” had its world premiere at the London Indian Film Festival on June 21, 2018. At the same time, she keeps making appearances in the American television series “The Path” as Vera.
She is currently working on two future movies. ‘Mowgli,’ in which she plays Messua, is one of them; it’s currently in postproduction and will be released in 2019. Filming is currently underway for her other project, “Needle in a Timestack.”
Large-scale Works of Freida Pinto
The most well-known part of Freida Pinto’s career is from the 2008 British drama film “Slumdog Millionaire.” Despite having a relatively small role—she made an impression as Latika, the main character Dev Patel’s love interest.
Individual Life and Heritage of Freida Pinto
Pinto, who had been seeing Rohan Antao since 2003, got engaged to him in 2007. She ended her engagement to Antao in January 2009 and started dating her co-star in “Slumdog Millionaire,” Dev Patel. After nearly six years of courting, the couple ended their amicable relationship in December 2014.
She currently splits her time between Mumbai, London, and Los Angeles and has no fixed address. She is more visible in Los Angeles than in other places, though.
Pinto is also actively engaged in a number of philanthropic endeavors, with a particular focus on improving the lives of underprivileged women and children. She was named the “Because I am a Girl” global ambassador by Plan International in 2012. She had previously raised $75,000 for the Agassi Foundation in 2010.
Remarkable Pinto’s name means “chick” in Portuguese.
Net worth of Freida Pinto
The estimated net woth of Freida Pinto is about $1 million.