Preity G Zinta is an Indian actress and entrepreneur primarily known for her work in Hindi films.
100 Facts About Preity Zinta
2.
Preity Zinta subsequently established a career as a leading actress of Hindi cinema with a variety of character types.
3.
Preity Zinta starred in two consecutive annual top-grossing films in India, Koi.
4.
Preity Zinta followed this with a hiatus from acting work for several years, with the exception of her self-produced comeback film, Ishkq in Paris, which failed to leave a mark.
5.
Preity Zinta is a social activist, television presenter and stage performer.
6.
Preity Zinta is the founder of the production company PZNZ Media, a co-owner of the Indian Premier League cricket team Punjab Kings since 2008, and the owner of the South-African T20 Global League cricket team Stellenbosch Kings since 2017.
7.
Preity Zinta is known in the Indian media for publicly speaking her mind, and consequently has sparked the occasional controversy.
8.
Preity Zinta was born on 31 January 1975 into a Hindu Rajput family from Shimla district, Himachal Pradesh.
9.
Preity Zinta's father, Durganand Zinta, was an officer in the Indian Army.
10.
Preity Zinta died in a car accident when she was thirteen; the accident involved her mother, Nilprabha, who was severely injured and consequently remained bedridden for two years.
11.
Preity Zinta called the tragic accident and her father's death a significant turning point in her life, which forced her to mature rapidly.
12.
Preity Zinta has two brothers; Deepankar and Manish, a year older and a year younger, respectively.
13.
Preity Zinta, who describes herself as having been a tomboy as a child, has emphasised her father's military background as having given her a lasting impression on how family life was to be conducted.
14.
Preity Zinta asserted the importance of discipline and punctuality to the children.
15.
Preity Zinta studied at the Convent of Jesus and Mary boarding school in Shimla.
16.
Preity Zinta graduated with an English honours degree, and then started a graduate programme in psychology.
17.
Preity Zinta earned a postgraduate degree in criminal psychology, but later took up modelling.
18.
In 1997, Preity Zinta met Shekhar Kapur when she accompanied a friend to an audition in Mumbai, and was asked if she would audition too.
19.
Preity Zinta was scheduled to make her screen debut in Kapur's Tara Rum Pum Pum opposite Hrithik Roshan, but the filming was cancelled.
20.
Preity Zinta often recalls that when she joined the film industry her friends teased her that she would typically "wear white saris and dance in the rain", thereby motivating her to play different parts.
21.
Preity Zinta commenced shooting for Kundan Shah's Kya Kehna, whose release was delayed until 2000.
22.
Preity Zinta was introduced as Preeti Nair, a middle-class Delhi girl and Khan's fiancee.
23.
Preity Zinta won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut for her performance in both Dil Se.
24.
Preity Zinta next acted in two Telugu films, Premante Idera and Raja Kumarudu.
25.
Preity Zinta followed with the leading role in Sangharsh, a 1999 thriller directed by Tanuja Chandra and written by Mahesh Bhatt.
26.
Preity Zinta portrayed Reet Oberoi, a Central Bureau of Investigation officer who falls in love with a captured killer played by Akshay Kumar.
27.
Sangharsh was not a box-office success, although Preity Zinta's performance received favourable comments by critics.
28.
Anupama Chopra from India Today reported that Preity Zinta belonged to a new breed of Hindi film actors that breaks away from character stereotypes.
29.
Preity Zinta next appeared alongside Sanjay Dutt and Hrithik Roshan in Vidhu Vinod Chopra's drama Mission Kashmir.
30.
Preity Zinta's role was that of Sufiya Parvez, a TV reporter and Roshan's childhood love.
31.
In 2001, Preity Zinta was paired with Sunny Deol in the action film Farz.
32.
Preity Zinta's role was dismissed by critics, and the film failed commercially.
33.
Two more 2001 releases featured Preity Zinta, including Farhan Akhtar's coming-of-age Dil Chahta Hai.
34.
Preity Zinta played Aamir Khan's love interest Shalini, who is conflicted about her upcoming, loveless marriage.
35.
In 2002, Preity Zinta collaborated with director Kundan Shah, as the protagonist in the family drama Dil Hai Tumhaara, alongside Rekha, Mahima Chaudhry and Arjun Rampal.
36.
Preity Zinta played Shalu, an adopted daughter craving love, a role she identified with due to its rebellious nature.
37.
Preity Zinta's career surged significantly in 2003 as she was the lead in India's three highest-grossing films of the year: The Hero: Love Story of a Spy, Koi.
38.
Preity Zinta played the part of Reshma, a Kashmiri villager who falls in love with the agent and becomes part of this network.
39.
Preity Zinta next starred in Honey Irani's directorial debut, Armaan; the drama is set in a hospital and follows the travails of its personnel and its principal, Dr Akash, who struggles arduously to sustain the institution financially.
40.
Preity Zinta played Akash's schizophrenic wife Sonia Kapoor, a role written specially for her and which she considered her best to that point.
41.
The film received predominantly positive reviews, and Preity Zinta was particularly praised.
42.
At the 49th Filmfare Awards, Preity Zinta received two Best Actress nominations: one for Koi.
43.
In 2004, Preity Zinta played TV journalist Romila Dutta in Farhan Akhtar's war drama Lakshya, alongside Hrithik Roshan.
44.
The film is based on the historical events of the 1999 Kargil War, and Preity Zinta's character is modelled after Barkha Dutt, the only female reporter who covered the conflict.
45.
Preity Zinta called it the toughest film she had worked on and said it made her respect journalists.
46.
Preity Zinta's part required her to master the fine nuances of the Urdu language.
47.
Preity Zinta's work resulted in a fourth Filmfare Best Actress nomination, among others.
48.
Preity Zinta starred opposite Govinda in the 2005 folk comedy Khullam Khulla Pyaar Karen, a production that had been delayed since 2002.
49.
Preity Zinta received a number of Best Actress nominations for playing the protagonist Ambar Malhotra, a single modern young woman who leaves India to make her own life in Melbourne and works as a radio host while studying medicine.
50.
Devyani Srivastava of Mid-Day considered the independent, strong-minded character of Ambar to be a rare Hindi film heroine, and Taran Adarsh argued that Preity Zinta had given "her most accomplished performance to date".
51.
Preity Zinta received further success in 2006, starring in Karan Johar's drama Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna alongside Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukerji, Abhishek Bachchan, and Amitabh Bachchan.
52.
Preity Zinta described the part as an attempt to shed her vivacious public image.
53.
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna polarised critics, but The Indian Express approved of Preity Zinta's effort, noting her for having "walked with poise, sat with grace, smiled with composure and spoken with calmness".
54.
Preity Zinta next appeared in Shirish Kunder's romantic musical Jaan-E-Mann.
55.
Preity Zinta played Piya, the cynosure of two men in the United States.
56.
Preity Zinta said the film was a great relief after the more emotionally intense Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, as Jaan-E-Mann was "easy, happy and much more simple".
57.
Preity Zinta acted alongside Amitabh Bachchan in her first English-language film, Rituparno Ghosh's film-within-a-film drama The Last Lear.
58.
Preity Zinta played Shabnam, a struggling film actress working on a new project opposite Shakespearean actor Harish Mishra in the midst of a turbulent relationship with her possessive husband.
59.
Preity Zinta next starred in Samir Karnik's Heroes, a three-chapter road movie about two film students who, as part of an assignment, travel across North India to deliver three un-posted letters written by army personnel who lost their lives during the 1999 Kargil war to their families.
60.
Preity Zinta is featured in the first chapter as Salman Khan's war widow, Kuljeet Kaur, a woman who becomes the sole breadwinner of the family and single-handedly raises her son.
61.
In preparation for the role Preity Zinta attended Anupam Kher's acting school, "Actor Prepares" to learn the dialect and mannerisms of a Punjabi woman.
62.
Preity Zinta described Mehta as one director she was longing to work with to fulfill her desire for "a new kind of acting challenge".
63.
Preity Zinta's performance earned her the Silver Hugo Award for Best Actress at the 2008 Chicago International Film Festival, for "her strong yet subtle performance as a woman struggling to keep her dreams despite brutal realities".
64.
Preity Zinta was nominated for the Genie Award for Best Actress.
65.
Preity Zinta's role required her to learn French and follow a strict diet and fitness regime, for which she hired the services of celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson.
66.
Whilst the film bombed at the box office and received mostly negative reviews, Preity Zinta's performance attracted a mixed critical reception.
67.
Shilpa Jamkhandikar from Deccan Herald, critical of both the film and Preity Zinta's work, concluded a scathing review by calling it "a mediocre film, one that was supposed to showcase one of our favourite leading ladies, but instead just shows us what a shadow of her past she's become".
68.
In 2020, Preity Zinta appeared alongside Vir Das in an episode of the American sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, titled "The Magic Motor Inn"; she was set to reprise her role in a spin-off series, centered around her character's family, but in June ABC announced that it would not be moving forward with the spin-off.
69.
In 2004, Preity Zinta joined a group of South Asian commentators for BBC News Online.
70.
Preity Zinta's third column, "The darkness that all actors fear", was a more personal column and dealt with her stardom, fans, insecurity and fears as an actor.
71.
Preity Zinta has taken part in several stage shows and world tours since 2001.
72.
In 2006, Preity Zinta was part of the "Heat 2006" world tour, along with Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan, Sushmita Sen and Celina Jaitley.
73.
In December 2012 Preity Zinta returned to the stage with the "Temptation Reloaded" concert in Jakarta.
74.
In 2015, Preity Zinta featured as a talent judge for the seventh season of the dance reality show Nach Baliye.
75.
Preity Zinta has participated in AIDS awareness drives and campaigns to clean up Mumbai.
76.
Preity Zinta lent her support to the cause of women's empowerment and promoted blood donation.
77.
In 2007, as part of the NDTV show Jai Jawan, Preity Zinta visited Hisar, Haryana, where she spent a day at the army training base to boost the morale of the jawan troops and met children with disabilities at a special school maintained by the army.
78.
Preity Zinta spoke on behalf of awareness against the practice, the need for protection and rehabilitation for those rescued from it, and punishment for perpetrators.
79.
In 2009, on her 34th birthday, Preity Zinta adopted 34 girls from the Mother Miracle orphanage in Rishikesh and took the responsibility of financially supporting their education, food and clothing.
80.
Preity Zinta expressed her excitement at doing so and recounted her full commitment to their upbringing.
81.
In January 2010 Preity Zinta was appointed the brand ambassador of The Loomba Trust, an organisation that works for the welfare of widows and their children.
82.
Preity Zinta said, having lost her father at thirteen, she could relate to the problems faced by widowed women.
83.
In October 2010 Preity Zinta was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of East London.
84.
Until 2009, Preity Zinta was the only woman to own an IPL team, and was the league's youngest owner.
85.
Preity Zinta has been involved with launching ticket sales and promoting the team.
86.
Preity Zinta used to visit her native town Shimla when she was not busy shooting.
87.
Unlike several of her colleagues, Preity Zinta repeated in court her earlier statement that she had received extortion threats from the mafia during the shooting of the film.
88.
Preity Zinta was the only witness who did not become hostile to the prosecution.
89.
Preity Zinta's actions met with nationwide public resonance and applause.
90.
Preity Zinta dated the Bombay Dyeing heir, businessman Ness Wadia from February 2005 until May 2009.
91.
On 13 June 2014, Preity Zinta filed a complaint with the Mumbai police against Ness Wadia alleging he had molested, threatened, and abused her at an IPL match at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on 30 May Wadia denied the allegations.
92.
On 29 February 2016, Preity Zinta married her American partner Gene Goodenough at a private ceremony in Los Angeles.
93.
Preity Zinta moved to Los Angeles following the marriage; she visits India on a frequent basis.
94.
Preity Zinta is known in the Indian media for her straightforward nature and for honestly expressing her opinions in public, be it about her on-screen or off-screen life or her raising a voice against social injustice.
95.
Preity Zinta is one of the best-known celebrities in India; at her career peak she was one of Hindi cinema's most celebrated stars and was acknowledged for having managed a career without any traditional assistance or family relations in the film industry.
96.
Preity Zinta featured in Box Office India's top actress listing for seven years and ranked first for two consecutive years.
97.
In 2003, Preity Zinta appeared in the number one spot on Rediff.
98.
Preity Zinta was ranked second for the following three years.
99.
Between 2006 and 2008 Preity Zinta made three consecutive appearances at the Cannes Film Festival.
100.
Preity Zinta was the only Indian actress nominated for the poll and eventually did not make it to the final list, ranked at 144.