Tota Roy Chowdhury


Tota Roy Chowdhury is an Indian actor and martial artist based in Kolkata. He predominantly appears in Bengali and Hindi cinema.
He made his film debut with Prabhat Roy's National Award winning Bengali film Lathi. His breakthrough role came with Rituparno Ghosh's National Award winning Bengali film Chokher Bali. He made his Bollywood debut with Sujoy Ghosh's .

Career

Early career

During his 2nd year in college, he made up his mind to join the Indian Army and was preparing for the CDS exams when fate intervened and he was asked by the prominent director Prabhat Roy to play a small role in his film. That one film brought other offers and soon he decided to become a professional actor. After starring in a few commercially successful films, he was spotted by the national award winning director Rituparno Ghosh and cast opposite Nandita Das in his film Shubho Mahurat. In spite of the presence of such veteran artistes, such as Raakhee, Sharmila Tagore and Nandita Das in the film, Tota made his mark.

Breakthrough

Chowdhury was cast again opposite Aishwarya Rai in Rituparno's Tagore adaptation, Chokher Bali. It was his breakthrough performance, which was hailed by both the critics and the cinegoers. He won several awards, including the prestigious BFJA Award for the Best Actor. He did an extended cameo in the AR Murugadoss directed Kaththi which introduced him into Tamil film industry. He also starred in the Sujoy Ghosh directed short film Ahalya alongside Soumitra Chatterjee and Radhika Apte. He played the role of Arun in the film ; directed by Sujoy Ghosh opposite Vidya Balan, which got him noticed by the Hindi film industry. His second Hindi film Indu Sarkar directed by Madhur Bhandarkar was released in 2017. He was cast opposite Kirti Kulhari and his portrayal of the troubled government servant Navin fetched him recognition and praises. Industry veteran Anupam Kher tweeted ‘Tota in Indu Sarkar is a brilliant piece of casting ‘ and Asutosh Gowariker tweeted ‘Superb performance by Tota Roy Choudhury ‘. His next film was Helicopter Eela where he was cast opposite Kajol. The film was directed by Pradeep Sarkar. His portrayal of the psychologically disturbed Arun fetched him good reviews. He was again sought after by the southern film industry and was cast as SSP Praveen Kumar in the Kannada film Ranchi. The film is directed by Shashikanth Gatti and co-stars Prabhu Mundkur. Simultaneously he was also cast in the official Hindi remake of ‘The Girl on the Train’ by Ribhu Dasgupta. Co-starring Parineeti Chopra, Aditi Rao Hydari and Kirti Kulhari, the film has been shot in London and has been produced by Reliance Entertainment.

Filmography

Films

Television and Web