- Niharika Singh is an Indian actress and filmmaker.
After playing 'Bharat Mata' in a school play as a child, Niharika went on to participate in children theatre workshops conducted by 'Sahitya Kala Parishad' (the cultural wing of Govt. of NCT of Delhi), performing in plays in her summer vacations. Her interest in co-curricular activities were encouraged when she was sent to a boarding school as a teenager. Singh began working as a model to earn a little income when she was in college and after a short stint in Delhi, moved to Mumbai to expand her career in the entertainment business.
Niharika participated in the Miss India beauty pageant in 2005 and won the title of Femina Miss India Earth along with subtitles for Miss Photogenic and Miss Beautiful hair. She appeared in several television commercials, print ads, music videos, fashion magazines, hosted a reality series and signed a ten-film contract with Bollywood director Raj Kanwar in 2006 that never saw the light of the day. After a series of unreleased and shelved films, Niharika made her feature film debut with the critically acclaimed 'Miss Lovely' which competed in Un Certain Regard at the 2012 Cannes film Festival. Singh won a nomination for the Most promising newcomer at the 21st Screen Awards for her portrayal of a struggling actress in the film.
After her tryst with Cannes and other international festivals, Niharika joined a course at the Film and Television Institute of India to expand her interest in the medium & stepped away from public life. She occasionally made brief appearances in a few independent films over the next decade and actively chose not to participate in any promotional activities during this period.
In 2016, Niharika was selected for Berlinale Talents.
She joined Future East, a Mumbai based film production company in 2019 and co-founded Future East Digital with filmmaker Ashim Ahluwalia and creative director Amit Basak in 2020.
Singh turned producer with the TV series - CLA$$ (Season 1) for Netflix in 2023.
- IMDb mini biography by: Pran A
- Niharika was one of the ten Indian artists chosen for Berlinale Talents when Meryl Streep was the Berlinale jury president in 2016.
- In 2012, Niharika Singh had more posters than Aishwarya Rai Bachchan at the Cannes Film Festival.
- In 2006, Niharika was cast in Leena Yadav's Teen Patti but she refused to sign the contract since the producers wanted her to not take up any other jobs till the release of the film while they waited for Amitabh Bachchan's dates.
- Niharika was treated as a state guest and given a rousing welcome in Uttarakhand in 2005 and a garden was named after her in Mussoorie.
- Since Niharika started her professional life early in Mumbai, she supported her younger sister Garima through college as well as singer Aditi Singh Sharma, her cousin when Aditi was beginning her career as a playback singer in Bollywood.
- The hardest and the most important thing I've learned at every stage in my career is patience.
- My experiences in the Hindi film industry made me question the idea of Bollywood, celebrity culture and the role of savarna culture-makers.
- It's time to realize that the pompous, neo-liberal, savarna feminism is not going to liberate anyone. Unless the Savarna feminists do not dismantle the same power structures from which they have benefited, women in this country will continue to be gas-lit, exploited and maligned; their dreams thwarted, voices silenced, bodies assaulted and histories erased.
- Cinema, in the last 100 years has grown from silent moving images to one of the most lucrative businesses in the world. What I see primarily is the capitalization of a medium that is singularly responsible for overshadowing various other mediums of creative expression. What is interesting to see is that performing artists-mainly singers, dancers and actors who barely held much respectability up to the early 20th century are the biggest social influencers in present day society and claim a demigod like position across the world. In South Asian society in particular, it's fascinating to see how occupations/skills that were once viewed as impure or disgraceful have changed drastically with economics. Now dominant caste groups not only appropriate those spaces but also leave little or no room for those who were, historically, barely given any choice to take on other roles.
- I'm probably just a function of fragmented ideas of home, a curious mind and a rebellious spirit. My sense of self doesn't come from the way I look or my job or my economic-social-marital status. Neither does it come from what I've studied, where I come from, the things I own, the number of followers I have or for that matter, any identity ascribed to me. I question everything, have no rigid ideas, rules or a singular worldview. My journey continues to be of self-exploration through everything I do. The only thing I've learned in life so far is to have patience, be true to yourself and not take your successes or failures too seriously. Just try finding the Buddha in you, do things that catch your interest and go with the flow.
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