Richa Gangopadhyay

Richa Gangopadhyay (born Antara Gangopadhyay, 20 March 1986), now Richa Langella, is an American former actress and model who worked mainly in Telugu films. A former Miss India USA, she debuted in Sekhar Kammula‘s Leader (2010) and went on to appear in commercially successful Telugu films such as Nagavalli (2010), Mirapakaay (2011), Sarocharu (2012) and Mirchi (2013), alongside leading men including Venkatesh, Nagarjuna, Ravi Teja, Prabhas and Rana Daggubati. She left films in 2013 and now lives in Portland, Oregon.

Early life and education

Richa was born in New Delhi to a Bengali family and moved to the United States with her parents as a small child, growing up in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Her father is a vice president at Netshape Technologies, and her mother is a deputy director at the Institute of Museum and Library Services. At Okemos High School she founded a tutoring programme for at-risk children in Lansing, which she ran for four years. She graduated from Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Science in communications and a minor in theatre arts.

Pageants and modelling

In 2007 she won Miss India Michigan and then Miss India USA, along with the Miss Photogenic title, and she reached the top 10 of the Miss India Worldwide pageant in Johannesburg. In 2008 she moved to Mumbai to pursue films, earned a diploma from Anupam Kher’s acting school, Actor Prepares, and modelled in advertisements including a Dabur Vatika commercial with Preity Zinta.

Leader and Nagavalli

An assistant director recommended her to Sekhar Kammula, and she was chosen for Leader immediately after auditioning in Hyderabad on her birthday. She played Archana, a news reporter, the daughter of a politician and the love interest of the title character, played by the debutant Rana Daggubati. The film was well reviewed and did well commercially. P. Vasu then cast her in Nagavalli, the sequel to his Chandramukhi, with an ensemble including Venkatesh, Anushka Shetty and Shraddha Das; critics found her convincing as a girl possessed by Nagavalli’s ghost.

Later films

Harish Shankar, who had noticed her at the success party for Leader, cast her opposite Ravi Teja in Mirapakaay (2011) as Vinamra, a traditional Telugu girl. In Tamil she appeared in Selvaraghavan’s Mayakkam Enna, with Dhanush, which won her Edison Awards for Best Debut Actress and Best Actress, and in Osthe with Silambarasan. In 2012 she made her Bengali debut in Bikram Singha: The Lion Is Back with Prosenjit Chatterjee. Her last Telugu films were Sarocharu, Mirchi and Bhai, opposite Ravi Teja, Prabhas and Nagarjuna respectively.

Leaving films

In October 2013 she announced a break from films to return to the United States and pursue an MBA, which she completed at the Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis, in May 2017. She married her business school classmate Joe Langella, and they have a son, born in May 2021.

Sources: Wikipedia and Wikidata.