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Ajay Naidu

Ajay Naidu has built a career that refuses to stay in one lane. Born in Evanston, Illinois, on February 12, 1972, he began working professionally at a young age, landing a leading role opposite Michael Keaton in Touch and Go through an open call. Early appearances in the ABC Afterschool Special “No Greater Gift,” MacGyver, Where the River Runs Black and Vice Versa established his screen career before he spent several years working extensively in classical theatre. That theatrical grounding has remained central to Naidu’s work. He trained with the American Repertory Theater’s Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University and later returned to film in Richard Linklater’s SubUrbia. His performance earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Male. He went on to star in the cult comedy Office Space and appear in a wide-ranging group of films including π, Requiem for a Dream, K-Pax, Bad Santa, The War Within, The Guru, Waterborne and Loins of Punjab Presents. Television has been another steady part of the mix. Naidu was a series regular on the sitcom LateLine and made guest appearances in The Sopranos, The West Wing and Bored to Death. His work also extends to voice acting, while his long involvement with the Asian underground music movement has included performing as a breakdancer and M.C. His vocals appeared on Talvin Singh’s OK and Vijay Iyer’s In What Language? Naidu directed his first feature, Ashes, which was released in 2010, and received Best Actor honors for the film at the MIACC Film Festival in New York and the London Asian Film Festival. Onstage, his credits range from Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure and Waiting for Godot to The Master and Margarita and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. His solo piece Darwaza sold out at New York’s Labyrinth Theatre in 2001. In 2019, he received the Excellence in Performing Arts Award from Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.