Huma Qureshi

Huma Qureshi Biography

Personal Information

• Full Name: Huma Saleem Qureshi
• Date of Birth: 28 July 1986
• Birthplace: New Delhi, India
• Nationality: Indian
• Profession: Actress
• Years Active: 2012–present

Family Background

• Father: Saleem Qureshi, a restaurateur who runs the ten-restaurant Saleem’s chain in Delhi
• Mother: Ameena Qureshi, a homemaker of Kashmiri descent
• Brothers: Three, including the actor Saqib Saleem

The family moved to Kalkaji in South Delhi when Qureshi was a child.

Education

• College: Gargi College, University of Delhi
• Qualification: Bachelor’s degree in History (Honours)
• Training: Joined the Act 1 theatre group in Delhi and performed in several productions; N. K. Sharma was her mentor and acting teacher

Career Highlights

Qureshi worked in theatre and modelling before films. She moved to Mumbai in 2008 and signed a two-year contract with Hindustan Unilever for television commercials; during a Samsung shoot, Anurag Kashyap noticed her and signed her to a three-film deal.

2012–2015: Breakthrough

• Debuted as Mohsina in Kashyap’s two-part crime drama Gangs of Wasseypur (2012), which premiered at the 65th Cannes Film Festival and brought her a Filmfare nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
• Completed her Kashyap contract with the romantic comedy Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana (2012), a financial success.
• Appeared in the supernatural thriller Ek Thi Daayan (2013) and the underworld drama D-Day (2013). She also played the title role in “Sujata”, a segment of the anthology Shorts, which won her a Special Mention at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles.
• Co-hosted the 60th National Film Awards ceremony with R. Madhavan in May 2013.
• Played Muniya in Abhishek Chaubey’s black comedy Dedh Ishqiya (2014), a commercial success that earned about ₹270 million.
• Played a call girl in Sriram Raghavan’s Badlapur (2015), earning a Filmfare Best Supporting Actress nomination. The same year she made her Marathi debut in Umesh Kulkarni’s Highway and appeared in the collaborative film X: Past Is Present.

2016–2018: Wider range

• Made her Malayalam debut in dual roles opposite Mammootty in White (2016), which reviewers received poorly.
• Starred alongside Akshay Kumar in the courtroom comedy Jolly LLB 2 (2017), a box-office success.
• Appeared in Gurinder Chadha’s British-Indian partition drama Viceroy’s House, screened at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival, and in the horror film Dobaara: See Your Evil (2017) with her brother Saqib Saleem.
• Made her Tamil debut opposite Rajinikanth in Kaala (2018), and became a judge on the reality show India’s Best Dramebaaz.

2019–2024: Streaming and international work

• Played the title role in the Netflix dystopian series Leila (2019), directed in part by Deepa Mehta, to strong reviews.
• Starred as Rani Bharti in the political crime series Maharani from 2021, winning the Filmfare OTT Award for Best Actress (Critics) in a Drama Series.
• Made her Hollywood debut as Geeta in Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead (2021), and appeared in Bell Bottom (2021) and the Tamil thriller Valimai (2022).
• Led the web series Mithya (2022), a remake of the British series Cheat, and starred in Double XL and the crime comedy Monica, O My Darling (2022), for which she was nominated at the Filmfare OTT Awards.
• Played the cookery writer Tarla Dalal in the biopic Tarla, released on ZEE5 on 7 July 2023.

2025 onwards

• Starred as detective Roohi Kartar in Bikas Ranjan Mishra’s police procedural Bayaan, which had its world premiere in the Discovery section of the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on 6 September 2025.
• Reprised Pushpa Pandey Mishra in Jolly LLB 3, released on 19 September 2025 to generally positive reviews and moderate box-office success.
• Starred in the romantic comedy Single Salma, released on 31 October 2025, and appeared in the series Delhi Crime.
• Played a deaf and mute assassin in Baby Do Die Do (2026).
• Is set to star as Elizabeth in Geetu Mohandas’s Kannada-English bilingual film Toxic, in post-production.

Awards List