How Bend It Like Beckham actress Parminder Nagra slipped into obscurity while co-star Keira Knightley bagged £60m fortune
She played Jess, the footie mad teenager in Bend it like Beckham, but while her co-star has gone on to become Hollywood royalty, Parminder is living a much more humble lifestyle
SHE shot to stardom as Jess Bhamra, the football-mad teenager in Bend It Like Beckham... but these days Parminder Nagra's life couldn't be less A-list.
In Bend It Like Beckham, lead actress Parminder was the star player, backed up by a then unknown Keira Knightley.
The low-budget movie was a surprise smashLast week, when asked about her breakthrough film, Keira said: “We need a sequel.”
Any second take on the blockbuster would reunite on-screen pals Jess and Jules and their shared love of football - but away from the cameras, Parminder's modest life as a single mum-of-one is drastically different to her co-star's.
In 2013, Parminder was even forced to sell her LA home after a bitter divorce, and today she counts just 12,000 fans on Instagram.
Meanwhile, Keira - who played best friend Jules - boasts a £60 million fortune and an OBE, and has hardly stopped working since.
By way of contrast, even Parminder's day-to-day is distinctly normal: she splits her time between walking the dogs, doing the school run and treating herself to some DIY home beauty.
She has even shared a picture of her playing the hugely addictive game Fortnite on her laptop - which may explain why you're unlikely to see Parminder cropping up on your TV screen with anything more than a bit part.
From Leicester to Hollywood
Parminder, now 42, was a struggling actress living in her hometown of Leicester and working in a café when she got the call about Bend It Like Beckham.
She was called into the audition with Keira, who was almost a decade younger than her, and remembers: "I thought she was about 19 or 20, but she was still only 16. She thought I was 19 — but I was really 25 at the time."
The low-budget film about Jess, a Punjabi teenager living in West London who wanted to play football, was a surprise smash, earning £60 million against a £5 million budget.
Parminder was the star – she received critical acclaim for her performance, and was the first ever woman to win the FIFA Presidential Award in 2002.
She even met the man the movie was based on, footballing idol David Beckham, and the good times continued as she went on to be a lead character in US cult medical drama, ER, until 2009.
Speaking of her career high, and of meeting Becks and his wife, Victoria, Parminder said: "He loved the film and she said: ‘You were all so funny in it.’ So I went from that to being asked a year later — by George Clooney — if I wanted to play a doctor in ER.
“It was a no-brainer. A little Asian girl from Leicester should never have ended up in Hollywood.
"I lived in the Hollywood Hills and went to work every day at Warner Bros Studios and would see massive A-list stars. And my mum could say I made it as a doctor!”
Carving out a career
A year after Bend It Like Beckham, Parminder was also cast in romantic comedy Ella Enchanted as Areida, the best friend of Anne Hathaway’s character.
Her career looked to be taking off, big time... and then Parminder went under the radar.
In the past decade, she's had very few big roles, although she did provide voice performances in the Horrid Henry movie, Postman Pat and the TRON: Uprising TV series.
Other recent parts have included a role in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D series and an appearance in one episode of 13 Reasons Why.
But there were no headline performances on the same level as Bend It Like Beckham, with Parminder instead focusing hardest at being a mum.
Instead, it’s Keira who counts nominations for the three top gongs in movies - Bafta, Oscar and Golden Globe - while Parminder is still best known for the kooky football film she made 16 years ago.
Walking the dogs and school runs
It was in 2002, the year Bend It Like Beckham was released, that Parminder met cinematic photographer James Stenson.
He, too, was enjoying a successful career, earning £200,000 a year.
They relocated to Los Angeles when she accepted the role in ER, and married in Beverley Hills seven years later when she was five months pregnant with their son, Kai, who is now nine.
Not only was her career doing well, but Parminder was smitten – especially since her family once told her her marriage would be arranged.
"When I was 18 my mother gave me a photo of a man and said I’d marry him," Parminder once revealed. "I told her then that I was never going to have an arranged marriage."
The family were comfortable, owning a house in the trendy Laurel Canyon area of LA, which she bought for £660,000 in 2004, two years after Bend It Like Beckham, and a house in the UK, reportedly worth up to £1m.
But, after exactly three years of marriage, she filed for divorce.
Her settlement, agreed in 2013, was kind to her – she was reportedly awarded all her "income, residuals and royalties", plus their Californian home and their property in the UK.
However, she had to pay legal fees, plus a monthly sum of £780 in child support and she put their Californian house up for sale. She now lives in a nearby house with Kai, and their two dogs, Willow and Luna.
While she has managed to land bit parts in TV shows like the second series of Netflix show Thirteen Reasons Why, her Instagram feed is filled with pictures of doing the school run and walking the dogs.
She posts throwback pictures to her days on ER and Bend it Like Beckham, and contrasting snaps of today, which includes home workouts, cooking at home, playing with her son and socialising with friends.
She only has a modest 12,00 followers and, unlike most celebrities, her presence is so low-key that the account isn't verified.
While she has a handful of American TV actors and actresses following her, Charlie’s Angels star Lucy Liu is the only A-Lister she appears to be acquaintances with.
While Parminder is still very wealthy – she’s estimated to have a net worth of £1million – Keira is worth 60 times that sum, with £60m to her name.
The problem with dating
While Parminder has struggled to find lasting love, Keira has enjoyed high-profile relationships with 50 Shades actor Jamie Dornan and her Pride & Prejudice co-star, Rupert Friend.
And she now lives in one of her many homes - a £4 million family home in Islington, London, with her husband of five years, Klaxons rocker James Richton, and their three-year-old daughter, Edie.
Parminder is also now trying her hand at dating, but has spoken out about her struggle to meet the right people.
“One thing I find really bizarre about dating in Los Angeles is that you can have so many dates and it may not be a problem," she said.
"Why can’t you stick to one person? Everybody’s up front about it here. They go, ‘I’m seeing three other people this week’.”
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Future of footballing duo
The pair were friends during filming of Bend It Like Beckham, but they haven’t been seen together since.
Parminder said: “We got on right away and she is exactly how she comes across in interviews - a really nice girl. We both also had to get fit.
"I had never been to a football match, so started going to women’s games.”
Let's hope that it's not too long before the pair is reunited and hit the big screen once again.