Radhika Charudutt Apte, born on 7 September 1985, is an Indian actress who works mainly in Hindi films and television, along with films in Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. She began in theatre and made her film debut with a brief role in Vaah! Life Ho Toh Aisi! (2005). In 2018 she starred in three Netflix productions, Lust Stories, Sacred Games and Ghoul, and was nominated for an International Emmy Award for the first, becoming the first Indian actress to be nominated.
She was born at Christian Medical College in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, where her parents, Jayashree and Charudutta Achyut Apte, both Chitpavan Brahmins, were resident doctors. Her father later became a neurosurgeon and the chairman of Sahyadri Hospital in Pune. She is a graduate in economics and mathematics from Fergusson College in Pune. She was first in a regular school and then home-schooled with four friends by parents who lived in the same building, an experience she found liberating. She trained in Kathak under Rohini Bhate for eight years and became involved in theatre in Pune.
Her early attempt to work in Mumbai was discouraging: she lived as a paying guest in Goregaon on a salary of Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 from theatre roles, and returned to Pune. She acted in her first Marathi film, Gho Mala Asala Hawa (2009), and in Rakta Charitra, Rakta Charitra 2 and I Am. She then spent a year in London studying contemporary dance at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where she met her future husband, the musician Benedict Taylor, whom she married in 2012. After a year she agreed to move to Mumbai, and she found it a much more positive experience.
Rahul Bose, who had seen her in Anahita Oberoi’s play Bombay Black, suggested her name to the director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, who cast her as the TV journalist Brinda Roy Menon in his National Award-winning Bengali film Antaheen (2009), with Aparna Sen, Sharmila Tagore and Bose. She collaborated with Sumitra Bhave and Sunil Sukthankar on Mor Dekhne Jungle Mein and Ha Bharat Majha (2012), shot in 14 days. In 2012 she also appeared in the Marathi film Tukaram and her Tamil debut Dhoni, which earned a SIIMA nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Her 2014 films included Lai Bhaari, which broke the opening-weekend record and became the highest-grossing Marathi film at the time. She gained attention in 2015 with supporting roles in three Bollywood productions, the revenge drama Badlapur, the comedy Hunterrr and the biographical film Manjhi – The Mountain Man, and her leading roles in the 2016 independent films Phobia and Parched earned her acclaim. She played the lead in the Tamil action film Kabali (2016), the Hindi biographical film Pad Man (2018) and the black comedy Andhadhun (2018), all commercially successful.
Beyond 2018, she starred in the Netflix films Raat Akeli Hai (2020) and Monica, O My Darling (2022) and played the spy Noor Inayat Khan in the American film A Call to Spy (2019). Her performance in Sister Midnight (2024) earned a nomination for a British Independent Film Award. She works across languages and between independent and mainstream cinema.
Featured image: Radhika Apte with the team of Antaheen at the International Film Festival of India in Panaji, November 2009 (file photo). Photo by Prime Minister’s Office, licensed under Government Open Data License – India, via Wikimedia Commons.
