Five Indian personalities who made it big in Hollywood

These actors, writers, musicians, producers and directors are all globally acclaimed artists with an Indian origin and have ruled the roost at Hollywood with their skills and talents.

Mindy Kaling

Having been featured in TIME magazine’s list of 100 most influential people in the world, she is one of the most beloved faces on American TV. The star of ‘The Mindy Project’, Mindy Kaling is an actor, writer, producer and director. She is best known for her work in the Emmy award winning NBC show, ‘The Office’. Her journey in the movie world began in 2005, with the ’40 Year Old Virgin’. She has also lent her voice to the character, ‘Disgust’ in the Oscar-winning Pixar animated film ‘Inside Out’. Her writing work includes penning episodes for her shows and her comedic memoir, ‘Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (and other concerns)’ and her second memoir, ‘Why not me?’

Kal Penn

Born to a Gujarati couple who had moved to America, Penn is one of the most well-known Indian faces in Hollywood. He is best known as Kumar to his fans for his character of the same name in the movie series, ‘Harold and Kumar’. Besides this movie, he has also appeared in ‘Van Wilder’. His acting career landed him various roles on American TV and gave him his fair-parts in shows such as ’24’, ‘House’ and ‘How I Met Your Mother’. Interestingly, Penn also played a little role in politics by joining Obama’s administration in 2009 as an associate director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.

M Night Shyamalan

He was born in the South Indian territory of Puducherry and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is a film director, screenwriter, producer, and occasional actor, and is known for making movies with supernatural plots. It is his screenplay that made ‘Stuart Little’ have his miniature adventures and reaped the action in ‘After Earth’. Other internationally acclaimed works by him include ‘The Sixth Sense’, ‘The Happening’, ‘Unbreakable’, ‘Lady in the Water’, among others.

Ashok Amritraj

He has worked with the biggest names in Hollywood, such as Bruce Willis, Sandra Bullock, Sylvester Stallone, Angelina Jolie, Cate Blanchett, Antonio Banderas, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Kate Hudson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Aniston, Nicolas Cage and many more. He is the one who has produced international hits like ‘Ghost Rider’, ‘Bringing Down the House’, ‘Moonlight Mile’ and ‘Bandits’. Chennai-born Ashok Amritraj is the producer of over 100 films and the chairperson of Hyde Park Entertainment, an LA-based entertainment company. Amritraj has also served on the board of Motion Pictures and Television Fund and also the National Geographic Films.

Tarsem Singh

Born in Punjab’s Jalandhar, Tarsem Singh, popularly known as Tarsem, is the director of several famous music videos, films and commercials. Singh started as a director of music videos for groups like En Vogue and R.E.M, and went onto do other works. Some of his starry films are ‘The Cell’, ‘Mirror Mirror’, ‘The Fall’ and ‘Immortals’. One of his most famous commercials is Pepsi’s ‘We Will Rock You’ campaign, featuring Britney Spears, Pink and Beyonce Knowles.