Zohran Mamdani's mom, Mira Nair, has storied career in Hollywood
Zohran Mamdani, who could become the first Muslim mayor of New York City, has esteemed Hollywood pedigree; his mother is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker who worked with a string of A-listers, including Academy Award winners Denzel Washington, Reese Witherspoon and Lupita Nyong’o.
Mira Nair made history of her own when she won the prestigious Camera d’Or at Cannes in 1988 for “Salaam Bombay!” With the debut feature, she became the first Indian filmmaker to achieve such status. The acclaimed work, about the lives of children living in slums in the city now known as Mumbai, also garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1989.
Her 1991 American breakthrough, “Mississippi Masala,” was a cross-cultural romance movie that starred Denzel Washington in his first romantic role. The burgeoning heartthrob starred opposite Sarita Choudhury — currently in the “Sex and the City” spinoff “And Just Like That…” in the interracial romance set in Uganda during the reign of controversial dictator Idi Amin.
Nair also directed Witherspoon in the 2004 Victorian-era England historical drama “Vanity Fair” based on William Makepeace Thackeray’s 1849 novel.
https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/06/26/zohran-mamdanis-mother-mira-nair-hollywood/