KUNAL NAYYAR (Rajesh
Koothrappali)
Kunal Nayyar's role in THE BIG BANG THEORY is his first as a regular on a television
series, although he previously had a guest-starring role on NCIS.
Recently, Nayyar completed production on the
animated feature film Ice Age:
Continental Drift, which is slated for release in 2012. He also
hosted "A Tribute to Nerds," at the 2011 Montreal "Just for Laughs" Comedy
Festival.
His theater acting credits include Huck and Holden at the Dahlia Theater in
Los Angeles, for which Kunal was awarded Best Male Lead in a Play on the West
Coast by the Garland Awards, and Loves
Labors Lost at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon,
England. Nayyar also penned the
critically acclaimed play, Cotton Candy, which
continues to run in New Delhi.
Always a performer, Nayyar began acting in
musicals and plays at a young age. After high school, he left India for the
United States where he majored in business and took many acting classes at the
University of Portland (Portland, Oregon).
In his senior year, he was nominated as the best actor in his play, The Rose Tattoo, and was given an
invitation to the American College Theater Festival (ACTF) to compete in an
acting competition where he eventually won the Mark Twain Award for comic
brilliance as well as a fellowship to the prestigious Sundance Theater Lab. He
went on to receive his Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) from Temple University in
Philadelphia.
While in school, Nayyar played badminton and
competed at state level in the region of North India. He is also a fanatical fan of cricket. He is
said to have a killer shoulder shimmy. According to Nayyar, Wikipedia says his
name means "one who sees beauty in everything" and it comes from a
Himalayan bird known as the Painted Snipe.
He was born in London, England, and spent most
of his younger years growing up in New Delhi, India. He currently resides in
Los Angeles. Nayyar's birth date is
April 30.
