Navin Chowdhry (born 1 January 1971)^[1] is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Indra Ganesh in Doctor Who, Sunil Mitesh in The Job Lot and as Nish Panesar in the BBC soap opera EastEnders.

Early life

Chowdhry is of Indian origin. He was born and brought up in Bristol, England.^[2] He is the son of Simi Chowdhry, a well-known female activist. In 1994, he graduated from Imperial College London with an upper second class honours degree in biochemistry.^[3]

Career

At age 16, Chowdhry made his acting debut in the 1988 film, Madame Sousatzka with Shabana Azmi and Shirley MacLaine.^[3]

His next major role was as I.T. teacher Kurt McKenna in the successful comedy show Teachers in 2001–2003,^[2] and is also well known for playing PC Sanjay Singh in Dalziel and Pascoe. He also appeared as a possible rapist in Judge John Deed.

Chowdhry appeared in Waking The Dead, Series 3, Episode 3, entitled "Breaking Glass", opposite Trevor Eve and Sue Johnston. In the episode, he portrays the psychologically affected "Rainman". He then starred in the Channel 4 drama series NY-LON as Raph.^[4]

On 30 October 2005, he appeared on stage at the Old Vic theatre in London in the one-night play Night Sky alongside Christopher Eccleston, Bruno Langley, David Warner, Saffron Burrows and David Baddiel. In 2005 he made a guest appearance in Doctor Who, then starring Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor. In 2006, he appeared in the BBC Three drama series Sinchronicity, playing Mani.

In 2009, he appeared in two episodes of the Channel 4 series Free Agents and featured in Skellig. In 2010, he starred in the BBC television pilot Reunited, playing Danny.^[5]

Chowdhry has also produced projects such as the award-winning short film "This Bastard Business" and a short play entitled Mashed.^[3]

He played Anwar in the critically acclaimed 2015 BBC TV series Doctor Foster and in 2016 he played Sonny Desai in Series 18's first episode of Midsomer Murders.

Chowdhry portrayed Nodin Chavdri in the 2017 film Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

In 2019, he appeared in Sarah Rutherford's play "The Girl Who Fell" at Trafalgar Studios.^[6]

In 2022, Chowdhry began playing the previously unseen and imprisoned Nish Panesar in EastEnders.^[4] Nish, a manipulative psychopath, first appeared during the final stages of his 20-year prison sentence and was released shortly thereafter.

Filmography

Film

Television