Freida Selena Pinto was born in Bombay (now Mumbai), Maharashtra, India, to Sylvia, a school principal, and Frederick Pinto, a senior bank branch manager. She is from a Mangalorean family.

Pinto traversed the modeling circuit in Mumbai (represented by Elite Model Management India) for two years before gaining her big break when director Danny Boyle picked her out in the audition process to play the female lead, Latika, for his project Slumdog Millionaire (2008). In a promo interview, Boyle likened spotting her to his discovery of Kelly Macdonald for Trainspotting.

Surprisingly, Freida, who studied at Mumbai's St. Xaviers College, began taking acting classes (she has done amateur theater before) only after completing her debut film -- when she attended a three-month workshop by Barry John, the veteran theater guru.

Between 2006 and 2007, she anchored Full Circle, a travel show that was telecast on Zee International Asia Pacific. She went on assignments to Afghanistan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Fiji, among other countries.

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Trivia

Freida's parents are from Mangalore, a coastal town in southern India.

Her father is a banker; her mother is the principal of a high school. Her sister, Sharon, is a producer with an Indian news channel, NDTV.
Trained in some forms of Indian classical dance as well as salsa.
Was engaged to Rohan Antao from 2007 until January 2009. They were in a relationship from 2003 to 2009.
Auditioned for the part of Bond Girl Camille in Quantum of Solace (2008), but lost the role to Olga Kurylenko.
The surname Pinto is a Portuguese name meaning "Chick" (little bird). The first European colonizers and settlers of India, the Portuguese arrived in 1497.
She studied at Carmel of St. Joseph School in Malad and completed her bachelor of arts (BA) degree in English literature at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai.
Was formerly in a relationship with Dev Patel (from February 2009 to December 2014). The two met on the set of Slumdog Millionaire (2008).
Was considered to replace Emma Stone in Sucker Punch (2011), but lost out to Jamie Chung.
Her favorite actors are Jack Nicholson and Johnny Depp and her favorite actresses are Marilyn Monroe and Nicole Kidman.

This industry is for fighters and those who do not give up! It is very important to believe in yourself. Even when a hundred people rejected me, I did not lose hope and, finally, one of the biggest directors of all times [Danny Boyle] believed in me! Also working in this film [Slumdog Millionaire (2008)] has taught me a lot, not just in terms of acting but also about myself, which is an integral part of being a good actor!
I'm just so used to calling it Bombay. I know everything has changed. It's India's way of trying to brush off colonialism and make it what it originally was, but unfortunately for me I called it Bombay for 16 years, and I think that's a long time in a 26-year-old's life to automatically start calling it Mumbai. It's very confusing for a lot of people. My agent thought Bombay and Mumbai were two different places. And I was like, "No, it's the same thing."
[on preparing to play a primatologist in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)] Like most people, I only knew what I'd been taught in school about chimps, and that's not enough. So I watched a ton of videos about Jane Goodall, who I'd love to meet. All her research was fascinating and so useful, especially in how she studied human behavior in comparison to chimp behavior.