Suraj Sharma – Indian actor of ‘Life of Pi’ fame

Suraj Sharma is an Indian actor who shot to instant fame after playing 16-year old male protagonist in Academy award winning movie – Life of Pi (2012). The movie also featured a row of acclaimed Bollywood actors like Irrfan Khan, Tabu and Adil Hussain. It was Sharma’s debut flick and it earned him a nomination at the prestigious BAFTA awards in the ‘Rising Star’ category. Later he was seen in Showtime series – Homeland, CBS series – God Friended Me etc. In 2017 he marked his Bollywood debut with Phillauri, where he played the supporting role of Kanan Gill.

Suraj Sharma hails from Delhi and was born in 1993. Both his parents are Keralites, who worked in Delhi. Suraj also completed his education from capital city. He has no background in acting, yet he attended auditions for Life of Pi, directed by Ang Lee. After a few rounds of auditions, his expressive eyes and innocent appearance appealed filmmakers, and thus Suraj bagged his debut film role during his graduation days at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. He was selected from 3000 participants of the audition, and the role gave him multiple awards and nominations. He observed the behavior and mannerisms of tigers, as a sort of preparation for his role. Million Dollar Arm directed by Craig Gillespie was his second release. Now he is mostly associated with English TV shows.

Suraj Sharma – Some interesting and less-known facts

1. His family has roots in Kerala. His father is a software engineer and his mother is an economist, both natives of Kerala.

2. In future he wants to direct films.

3. He completed Mass Communication course at New York University.

4. He celebrated his 18^th birthday in the film sets of Life of Pi.

5. He played lead role in Hindi movie, Umrika (2015) directed by Prashant Nair. The movie was premiered at Sundance Film festival 2015, and won World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award.