The Biography

Huma Qureshi (born Huma Saleem Qureshi) is an Indian actress, model, and producer who works predominantly in Hindi cinema alongside international and South Indian productions. Born on July 28, 1986, in New Delhi into a Muslim family to restaurateur Saleem Qureshi and Ameena Qureshi, she is the elder sister of actor Saqib Saleem. She completed her schooling in Delhi and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in History from Gargi College, University of Delhi. Deeply passionate about dramatic arts, she honed her skills in Delhi's theatre circuit with the Act 1 theatre group under the mentorship of N. K. Sharma and Aamir Raza Husain before moving to Mumbai. After appearing in high-profile television commercials for brands like Samsung and Nerolac, she was spotted by filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, who cast her in his landmark two-part crime saga. Qureshi made an explosive feature film debut portraying the feisty Mohsina Hamid in Anurag Kashyap's critically acclaimed cult masterpiece *Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 1* and *Part 2* (2012) opposite Nawazuddin Siddiqui, earning widespread national recognition and nominations for the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut and Best Supporting Actress. She quickly cemented her reputation as a bold, versatile performer, headlining acclaimed films including the supernatural thriller *Ek Thi Daayan* (2013), Nikkhil Advani's espionage actioner *D-Day* (2013), Abhishek Chaubey's black comedy *Dedh Ishqiya* (2014) alongside Madhuri Dixit, Sriram Raghavan's neo-noir revenge drama *Badlapur* (2015), and the Marathi road drama *Highway* (2015). She delivered major commercial box-office hits with Subhash Kapoor's courtroom comedy *Jolly LLB 2* (2017) opposite Akshay Kumar and crossed over into regional and international cinema with the Malayalam drama *White* (2016) opposite Mammootty, Gurinder Chadha's historical drama *Viceroy's House* / *Partition: 1947* (2017), Pa. Ranjith's Tamil action drama *Kaala* (2018) opposite Rajinikanth, and H. Vinoth's Tamil action thriller *Valimai* (2022) with Ajith Kumar. Qureshi emerged as one of Indian streaming entertainment's most formidable powerhouses, earning critical acclaim as Shalini in Deepa Mehta's Netflix dystopian drama series *Leila* (2019) and headlining three acclaimed seasons of SonyLIV's flagship political drama *Maharani* (2021–present) as Chief Minister Rani Bharti, which won her multiple Filmfare OTT Awards for Best Actress. She made her Hollywood debut in Zack Snyder's zombie heist thriller *Army of the Dead* (2021), played the seductive titular lead in Vasan Bala's neo-noir hit *Monica, O My Darling* (2022), portrayed iconic culinary pioneer Tarla Dalal in the biopic *Tarla* (2023), and starred in the psychological thriller series *Mithya* (2022–2024). Her filmography extends to Bikas Mishra's investigative drama *Bayaan* (2025), Pulkit's action thriller *Maalik* (2025) opposite Rajkummar Rao, the slice-of-life comedy *Single Salma* (2025), reprising Pushpa Pandey in *Jolly LLB 3* (2025), Vipul Vig's social drama *Gulabi* (2026), the thriller *Pooja Meri Jaan* (2026), and Geetu Mohandas's pan-Indian gangster action epic *Toxic* (2026) alongside Yash.