Lisa Ray

Ray's modelling career began when she was "discovered" during a family vacation in India while still in her teens. An advertisement for Bombay Dyeing where she appeared in a black swimsuit opposite Karan Kapoor earned Ray her first taste of public attention.[16][17][18][19] A subsequent meeting with Maureen Wadia, editor of Indian fashion magazine Gladrags, resulted in an iconic swimsuit cover that catapulted Ray to nationwide fame in India. "Most of my most fulfilling professional moments came to me via serendipity", Ray later wrote.[20]

By the time the Gladrags cover broke, Ray was already back in Toronto ready to begin university. Her plans were thwarted after a tragic auto accident that would consign her mother to a wheelchair for the rest of her life.[21][22] Ray returned to India and went on to become one of the country's first supermodels, and the face of Lakmé and Bombay Dyeing.[23] Ray would later acknowledge this coinciding of professional triumph and personal tragedy as a recurring theme in her life. "I have come to recognise that every major turning point in my life is preceded by pain", she wrote in Femina in 2016.[21]

As one of India's most successful cover models, Ray would subsequently lend her face to iconic global brands such as L’Oréal, MasterCard, De Beers and Rado.[24] A Times of India poll named her the "ninth most beautiful woman of the millennium," the only model in the top ten.[15] She co-anchored the TV show Star Biz on Star Movies[25] and appeared in a music video for Afreen Afreen, an iconic ghazal written by renowned lyricist Javed Akhtar, and composed and performed by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Lisa Ray being interviewed on The Hour

After turning down a number of roles,[26] Ray made her Indian Film Industry debut in 2001 with the Hindi film Kasoor, opposite Aftab Shivdasani,[16] in which her voice was dubbed by Divya Dutta, because she could not speak Hindi.[27] In spite of that, her performance received positive reviews.[28] Her work in the film also caught the eye of Deepa Mehta, who cast her in the romantic Indian-Canadian romp Bollywood/Hollywood in 2002.[13]

Realizing that acting was something that she wanted to pursue more seriously, Ray moved to London to concentrate on a career in the performing arts. While there, Ray studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama, the London Centre for Theatre Studies, the Desmond Jones school of Physical Theatre, and BADA. She graduated from the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts (ALRA), in 2004, with a post-graduate degree in acting.[29] While studying, Ray made a conscious effort to not accept any film offers until she had graduated. However, while still at ALRA, she received another call from Deepa Mehta, who made her an offer she simply could not refuse—the lead role of Kalyani in Mehta's much-anticipated, and eventually highly controversial,[30] feature, Water.[29] In the film, Lisa spoke her lines in Hindi, although her voice was dubbed in the final cut.[27] Water released in 2005 to both national and global critical acclaim, with the venerable Roger Ebert describing it as "lovely in the way Satyajit Ray's films are lovely",[31]

Ray has since worked in productions from Canada, Europe, and the United States. Past roles include a farm girl in All Hat, a school teacher in A Stone's Throw, and a housewife in 1950s-apartheid South Africa in The World Unseen. In 2008 Ray starred, alongside Sheetal Sheth and Amber Rose Revah, in the Shamim Sarif directed British romantic comedy I Can't Think Straight that went on to win awards in queer film festivals worldwide, including Dallas OUT TAKES, Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film festival.

After graduation, Ray based herself out of Milan, Paris, and New York from 2004 to 2008, returning to Toronto upon her mother's death in late 2008.[29] In 2007, Ray completed filming for Kill Kill Faster Faster, which is a contemporary film noir inspired by the critically acclaimed novel of the same name, by Joel Rose. She guest-starred in a 2009 episode of the USA Network series Psych, and appeared in Woody Harrelson starrer Canadian-American superhero film Defendor. Also in 2009, she starred in the Deepa and Dilip Mehta comedy Cooking with Stella.

Appearing at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival in support of the film, Ray revealed that she had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma.[32]

On Christmas in 2009, Ray received a stem cell transplant to treat her rare cancer. In April 2010, she announced she was cancer-free due to the transplant. She gave a candid interview on her personal cancer trauma and surviving it, appearing on the cover of the 2010 anniversary issue of the Indian men's luxury magazine The Man.[33]

2010 saw Ray in UniGlobe Entertainment's cancer docu-drama titled 1 a Minute.[34] The documentary was made by Namrata Singh Gujral and featured cancer survivors Olivia Newton-John, Diahann Carroll, Melissa Etheridge, Mumtaz, Bárbara Mori and Jaclyn Smith, as well as William Baldwin, Daniel Baldwin, and Priya Dutt, whose lives have been touched by cancer. The feature was narrated by Kelly McGillis.

On 5 July 2010, Ray hosted an informal lunch for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip during their visit to Toronto.[35]

In 2011, Ray acted in the stage play Taj, opposite Kabir Bedi at Luminato Festival, Toronto's International Festival of Arts and Ideas.[36] Written by Canadian playwright John Murrell, Taj combined poetry, music, theatre, and the Indian classical dance form kathak.[37] The production was described by The Globe and Mail critic Deirdre Kelly "as luminous and poignant as the building that inspired it".[38]

In the same year, Ray appeared in Craig Goodwill's award-winning fantasy drama film Patch Town, and a season 4 episode of Canadian Television period crime drama series Murdoch Mysteries, titled "The Black Hand".

She presented the 2011 IIFA Awards[39] in Toronto, and was a co-presenter the 2011 Giller Prize along with singer-songwriter Nelly Furtado and roots rock guitarist Robbie Robertson.[40]

Also in 2011, Ray appeared as host and travel guide on Oh My Gold, a five part series on Discovery Travel & Living, now TLC India.

In 2012, Ray began hosting season two of Top Chef Canada, Food Network Canada's highest rated series. The season premiered in March 2012.[9]

Speaking to The Telegraph in 2012, Ray remarked, "I think every film that I’ve done so far has been a turning point because I experimented with each one and grew professionally. The movies I chose, dealt with a lot of thought-provoking subjects.[41]

In 2016, Ray starred in Ram Gopal Varma's Veerappan.[42] She also played a crucial supporting role in 2017’s Dobaara, the official Bollywood adaptation of supernatural horror film Oculus.[43]

Since 2019, Ray has appeared as part of an ensemble cast in the Amazon Prime Video web series Four More Shots Please!.[44] After a successful first season aired in over 200 countries and regions, the series returned for a second season in 2020 and a third season in 2022.[45]