Anjli Mohindra

Anjli Mohindra (born 20 February 1990^[1]) played Rani Chandra in The Sarah Jane Adventures. She debuted in Series 2 in 2008 and remained in the show until its final episode in 2011.

Although the character of Rani was fifteen, Mohindra was actually nineteen when she took the role. Rani was the actress' first ongoing TV role after one-off appearances in shows such as Coronation Street.

Soon after playing Rani, in February 2012, she appeared as a new character, Gabriella Dominicci, in the Big Finish Productions audio drama Brand Management, an episode of the Bernice Summerfield box set Road Trip.

She also played Jyoti Cutler in the Big Finish Doctor Who audio story Scavenger, and Maris in the Gallifrey audio story Evolution.

Additionally, she narrated the Sarah Jane Adventures audiobook Judgement Day, the SJA webcomics Monster Hunt, Return of the Krulius, Defending Bannerman Road and the SJA video games Plants, Plant and Animal Habitats, Teeth and Eating and Rocks and Soils.

Mohindra later played the Queen of the Skithra in the 2020 Doctor Who television story Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror. Later that year, she reprised role of Rani for Farewell, Sarah Jane as part of Doctor Who: Lockdown!. She also voiced the Mechanoid Queen for the Daleks! web series.

A year later she appeared in the Behind the Sofa special feature segment on The Collection Season 8 Blu-Ray Box Set alongside her partner Sacha Dhawan.

In 2022 Mohindra returned to the role of Rani in audio format, debuting the character at Big Finish in the second release in The Eighth of March series, Protectors of Time, and appearing in the BBC Sounds series Redacted. In 2023 she began starring in a Big Finish range centred on Rani, Rani Takes on the World.

Career

She also appeared in a 2009 episode of Law & Order: UK alongside Freema Agyeman, and had a recurring guest role in the adult-oriented series Beaver Falls.

In 2015, she starred in Russell T Davies' Channel 4 drama series Cucumber playing a character named Veronica Chandra, sharing a surname with Rani, whom Davies created. Though likely an intentional reference to the character, this is unconfirmed.