Shweta Basu Prasad

Early life

Shwetha basu Prasad was born in Jamshedpur on jan 11 of 1991, Bihar (now in Jharkhand) and later migrated with her family to Mumbai when she was a child. Her father Anuj is from Bihar while her mother Sarmishta is from West Bengal.

Shweta's grandfather retired as a chief operating officer in Intelligence Bureau, new Delhi. Her father Anuj is a direction and acting diploma holder from Shreeram Centre, New Delhi. They later settled in Jamshedpur, where he married Shweta's mother, a musician and writer Sarmistha after 1 year's courtship in 1990 and they had Shweta the following year.

She studied commerce in the R. N. Podar High School, Santacruz, Mumbai. She added her mother's maiden name Basu to her screen name.

Career

In 2002, Prasad started her acting career as a child actress at the age of 11. She enacted dual roles as Chunni and Munni in the film Makdee, directed by Vishal Bhardwaj and got the National Film Award for Best Child Artist for the same. As a child artist, she also acted in the Star Plus series Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii as Shruti, daughter of Parvati and Om, and in soap operas like Karishma Kaa Karishma.

In 2005, she starred in the film Iqbal. Her performance as Khadija in the film, fetched her several accolades including the Best Supporting Actress Award at the 5th Karachi International Film Festival.

In 2008, she debuted in Telugu cinema and played her first starring role in the film Kotha Bangaru Lokam, co-starring Varun Sandesh. The film became a large commercial success. She was seen in Kasko, Kalavar King and Nuvvekaddunte Nenakkadunta.

Shweta is a graduate in mass media and journalism. After attaining her degree, she made a documentary on Indian classical Music called Roots, featuring the stalwarts of classical music industry like Pt. Shivkumar Sharma, A. R. Rahman, Vishal Bhardwaj, Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, Shubha Mudgal, Amjad Ali Khan, Gulzar, Dr. L. Subramaniam, Dr. Kiran Seth, Pt. Nayan Ghosh, etc.

Shweta also co-produced and acted in a 12-minute short film called Interior cafe night by Adhiraj Bose. The short film starred herself along with her Iqbal co-star Naseeruddin Shah, Shernaz Patel and Naveen Kasturia The short film was lauded by industry big wigs like Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Aamir Khan, Varun Dhawan, Maneesh Sharma, Shakun Batra, Sujoy Ghosh, etc.

Basu Prasad came back to acting with Balaji Telefilms high budget historical drama TV show Chandra Nandni, playing lead - Nandni - after quitting her job at Phantom Films, where she worked as a script consultant for a year and a half.

Shweta is also making a come back in Hindi films with Dharma Productions' Badrinath Ki Dulhania with Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt. The film will be her first Hindi film after Iqbal (2005).

Shweta has been dating filmmaker Rohit Mittal since December 2014.

Filmography

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Controversy

In August 2014, Shweta was detained by Hyderabad police in an alleged connection with a high-profile prostitution racket. However, it was later understood that Shweta had gone to attend a film awards night in Hyderabad and her stay at the 5 star hotel was part of the event hospitality. The session court in Nampally, Hyderabad gave a clean chit to Shweta Basu Prasad and closed the case on 5 December 2014, within 3 months of the infamous raid at the hotel. Shweta wrote an open letter to the media slamming them for blowing the issue out of proportion and tarnishing her image in public

Shweta is lauded as one of the coolest actress, who dealt with the controversy with calm attitude and never let it come between her personal or professional life. Shweta is often seen making fun of the controversy in her interviews