Zenobia Shroff

Zenobia Shroff has been an actress for thirty years. She got her start in Mumbai under the mentor ship of the legendary Pearl Padamsee. With Padamsee’s encouragement, she came to study acting at New York’s Circle in the Square Theatre School. Soon after, she honed her craft at the off- Broadway theatre Castillo, where she played several and diverse roles such as Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House to German avant-gardist Heiner Muller. She also performed in Mario Frattis “Erotic adventures in Venice” at the famed La Mama and Milan Kundera’s “Jacques and his Master”.

She has taught drama and movement extensively throughout New York City and Mumbai, primarily for inner city and low income children. She has taught at Arts Connection, Education in Dance, and is a proud founding teacher of Youth Onstage, that city’s only fully gratis theatre school for inner city children.

A few years ago, she was cast in Sooni Taraporevalas “Little Zizou”, presented by Mira Nair. For that role, she was nominated as Best Actress at the New York Indian film festival. Next she was seen in ‘When Harry tries to Marry’, a Hollywood independent film. She followed that up with her first Bollywood blockbuster, ‘Ek main aur ekk tu’ playing opposite superstars Kareena Kapoor and Imran Khan.

Her critically acclaimed one woman show ‘How to Succeed as an Ethnically Ambiguous Actor’ has been performed at the Planet Connection Theatre Festival, at which she was nominated for Best Actress. She also did a successful off Broadway run at the Castillo theatre.

In 2017, she had her breakout role as Kumail Nanjiani’s mother in The Big Sick, which was a resounding box office success and garnered her stellar reviews and a SAG nomination for Best Ensemble Cast. She followed up with a recurring role on season 4 of The Affair as Priya Ullah. She also recurred as Himaya Pravesh on The Resident, and on Madam Secretary. She will be back for season 5 of The Affair in August 2019.

Zenobia is an accomplished Bharat Natyam dancer and writes and performs sketch comedy. Her one woman show ‘Exotic observations’ has been performed at the Guild gallery, the Indo American arts council and the famed UCB. She holds a Masters degree in Psychology.