Vedang Raina – Hindi film actor best known for ‘The Archies’ and ‘Jigra’

Vedang Raina is an Indian actor who works in Bollywood. He is best known for playing Reginald “Reggie” Mantle in teen musical comedy film, The Archies (2023) directed by Zoya Akhtar, and Alia Bhatt’s younger brother in 2024 action thriller film, Jigra directed by Vasan Bala. He was one among a bunch of young actors who marked their screen debut with ‘The Archies’. He has also sung in first two released films.

Vedang Raina belongs to a Kashmiri family settled in New Delhi

Vedang was born on 2 June 2000 in New Delhi. He grew up in Mumbai and completed his schooling from Jamnabai Narsee School in Juhu. He graduated from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies in Vile Parle. He started loving performing on stage during college fests and events, and slowly developed interests in singing. He went to shows by Western bands when they toured in the city. Initially he began with guitar. He started dreaming about acting much later. He got interested in modelling too, and subsequently joined an acting agency to pursue a career in acting.

He started out modelling for different brands

He started his professional career as a model, and success in modelling gave him the first break to films. His first film offer came without any planning and he accepted The Archies (2023). Though the film was heavily criticized owing to nepotism as three of the principal members were from film families, the actor who was benefitted most was Vedang Raina, who didn’t belong to any filmy family. Subsequently he bagged Best Debut in a Film (Male) award at Filmfare OTT Awards 2024.

His first two films were backed by Dharma Productions

His second movie was Jigra where he played Ankur Anand, younger brother of Alia Bhat. Though the movie received critics’ review, the film flopped miserably at box office. He well portrayed the role of a young boy who gets imprisoned in a foreign jail falsely accusing of possession of drugs.

His cover versions – The Weekend’s ‘Earned It’ and ‘Phir Le Aya Dil’ by Arijit Singh earned him immense popularity before he forayed into acting and playback singing. Though not a trained singer, he has sung “Everything Is Politics” for The Archies, and three tracks – Phoolon Ka Taaro Ka and two versions of Title track for Jigra.

Vedang Raina – Some interesting and less-known facts

1. His venture into performing arts started with his school and college plays. He started off with singing and playing the guitar in inter-college fests. Acting came much later, unplanned.

2. He originally auditioned for the titular role in Zoya Akhtar’s The Archie’s but ended up booking the negative shaded character, Reggie Mantle instead. He was a little disappointed as the lead character has music interests similar to him.

3. As per rumours, Raina is dating Khushi Kapoor, his co-star from The Archies. They are frequently seen together at many occasions.

4. He loves science and even scored a 97 percent on his final exams in 12th grade. Yet he took a business degree from NMIMS.

5. When he got drawn towards music during his academic years, he wanted to learn Hindustani music. He studied classical music for a month, but discontinued it soon as he felt it difficult.

6. After receiving his first film project, he believes that luck was definitely on his side.