Ray Panthaki

Ray Panthaki (/pənˈθɑːki/;^[1] born 20 January 1979) is a British actor, producer, screenwriter and director best known for the roles he played in Marcella (2016–2020), Away (2020), and the movie Boiling Point (2021), for which he was nominated for the 2021 BIFA for Best Supporting Actor.

Ray Panthaki
Panthaki at the 6th Asian Awards 2016
Born	(1979-01-20) 20 January 1979 (age 46) London, England
Occupations	Actor screenwriter director film producer
Years active	1999–present

Other credits include Tube Tales (1999), Ali G Indahouse (2002), 28 Days Later (2002), Bollywood Queen (2003), Kidulthood (2006), Provoked (2006), Convenience (2013), It's a Wonderful Afterlife (2010), Screwed (2011), Interview with a Hitman (2012), Convenience (2013), Colette (2018), Official Secrets (2019), Gangs of London (2020), and The Serpent Queen (2022).

Early life

Panthaki was born in London to second-generation Indian parents.^[2] His parents belong to India's Parsi minority community.^[3]

Career

Panthaki is best known for the roles he played on ITV and Netflix series Marcella and Netflix series Away alongside Hilary Swank.^[4] He appeared as Hassan B in Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G Indahouse.^[4] He appeared in the films Colette,^[4] 28 Days Later, Official Secrets,^[4] Convenience,^[4] Tube Tales,^[4] Provoked,^[4] Interview with a Hitman,^[4] It's a Wonderful Afterlife, and the 2006 film Kidulthood which he also produced.^[4]

In 2006, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Play at the TMA Theatre Awards for his role in Gladiator Games. Later that year, he set up the London-based production company Urban Way.^[5] Panthaki made his West End theatrical debut in July 2008 in the play In My Name at the Trafalgar Studios.^[6] He has performed twice at the Royal Court Theatre in London in Where Do We Live by Christopher Shinn and The Westbridge by Rachel De-Lehay. He went on to play a leading role in Tanika Gupta's The Empress for the Royal Shakespeare Company directed by Emma Rice.

In 2013, Panthaki's directorial debut Life Sentence, a film which he also wrote, won Best UK Short at the East End Film Festival 2013.^[7][8][9] In 2013, Panthaki produced and starred in the comedy film Convenience starring alongside Vicky McClure and Adeel Akhtar.^[10][11] The film's director Keri Collins won Best Breakthrough at the 2014 BAFTA Cymru for his work on the film.^{[12][13][14][15]}

In 2014, he was announced as one of 18 BAFTA Breakthrough Brits a celebration of Britain's stars of tomorrow alongside fellow actors Stacy Martin, Katie Leung and Callum Turner.^[16] In 2016, Panthaki was cast as DCI Rav Sangha in Hans Rosenfeldt's Nordic noir detective series Marcella.^[17]

In 2017, it was announced that Panthaki had signed on to Wash Westmoreland's Colette, a biopic about the French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, to play real-life French playwright Pierre Veber.^[18] Panthaki attended the world premier at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival alongside co-stars Keira Knightley and Dominic West, where the film received positive reviews.^[19]

In 2020, Panthaki appeared in the Netflix series Away, alongside Hilary Swank, as Group Captain Ram Arya, second in command on a mission to Mars.^[20]

At the British Independent Film Awards 2021, Panthaki was nominated for the BIFA for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Freeman in Boiling Point alongside Stephen Graham.^[21][22]

Filmography

Key

†	Denotes works that have not yet been released

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1998	The Bill	Charlie	Episode: "Taking Sides"
1999	Jump Boy	Shamil	Short film
	Tube Tales	Mo	Segment: "Grasshopper"
2000	Losing It	Ray	Television film
2001	The Armando Iannucci Shows		Episode: "Communication"
	My Family	Gary	Episode: "Trust Never Sleeps"
2002	Blood Strangers	Zafar Wahid	Television film
	Ali G Indahouse	Hassan B
	Spooks	Chalak Ahmed	Episode: "One Last Dance"; uncredited
	Licks	Pizza man	Short film; also co-producer
	28 Days Later	Private Bedford
2003	Bollywood Queen	Anil
	Rehab	Naz	Television film
	Doctors	Duncan Marks	Episode: "Donations"
2003–2005	EastEnders	Ronny	158 episodes
2005	Blessed	Lance	8 episodes
2006	Kidulthood	Mark	Also co-producer
	Provoked	Ravi
	Strictly Confidential	Ali	Series 1 Episode 3
2007	Veils	Samir	Short film
	The Feral Generation	Vincent	Also producer
2009	City Rats	Dean	Also executive producer
2010	It's a Wonderful Afterlife	Jazz Sethi
2011	Screwed	Neil
2012	Interview with a Hitman	Franco
	The Man Inside	Bose	Also executive producer
2013	Jadoo
	Life of Crime	DS Nabeel Kothari	Episode: "1997"
	Convenience	Ajay	Also producer
2014	DCI Banks	Jeff Kitson	Episodes: "Bad Boy Parts 1 & 2"
	Cryptic	Cochise
	The Wrong Mans	Khalil	2 episodes
2015	World War Dead: Rise of the Fallen	Marcus
	Crackanory	Nasim
2016	One Crazy Thing	Jay Veer	Also producer
	Oysters Have Feelings Too	Jay	Short film
	Ghosted	Paul
2016–2020	Marcella	DI/DCI Rav Sangha	24 episodes
2018	Colette	Veber
2019	Official Secrets	Kamal Ahmed
2020	Dreams	Dreams architect	Video game voice only
	Gangs of London	Jevan Kapadia	8 episodes
	Away	Ram Arya	10 episodes
	Ernie		Writer and producer
2021	SAS: Red Notice	Prime Minister Atwood
	Boiling Point	Freeman	Also executive producer
2022	The Serpent Queen	Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine
2023	Bonus Track[23]	Mr. Zeppelin
	Boiling Point	Freeman	BBC television series
TBA	Fortunate Sons †