Virtually meet Saara Chaudry!
Saara Chaudry is an ACTRA and three-time Canadian Screen Award winning actor and singer that began her career with small parts in TV productions such as Degrassi. Saara made her theatre debut as Little Cosette in the 25th anniversary production of Les Miserables at the Princess of Wales theatre in Toronto. She had the honor of performing the role on opening night and at a special gala benefit with Colm Wilkinson.
After her theatre run, Saara returned to television where she played the role of Howie on Nickelodeon’s Max & Shred, and guest starred on PBS Kids Odd Squad. She also currently plays Amy on Emmy nominated Holly Hobbie and Saara Jain in Emmy and Canadian Screen Award winner, Dino Dana, as well as Dino Dana, the Movie. She was honored to win back-to-back Canadian Screen Awards for her role in Dino Dana in 2020 and 2021 and to also be nominated in the same category for Holly Hobbie in 2020.
Saara was thrilled to play Nira on Sinking Ship’s innovative show, Lockdown, shot entirely by web cam and smartphones during the pandemic and which recently won her third Canadian Screen Award. She also recurs as Martina Crowe on the Disney Plus series, The Mysterious Benedict Society. Saara just wrapped on the highly anticipated new Disney Plus series Muppets Mayhem where she plays Hanna alongside Lilly Singh, Tahj Mowry, Anders Holm and the iconic Muppets.
Saara has also worked on many animated projects. She was nominated for a 2017 Canadian Screen Award for her role as Clara in the Canadian Screen Award winner the Curse of Clara: A Holiday Tale. She is thrilled to be the voice of Parvana in the Oscar, Golden Globe and Canadian Screen Award nominated feature film, The Breadwinner, based on the novel by Deborah Ellis and executive produced by Angelina Jolie, for which she won the ACTRA award for best voice performance and was nominated for an Annie award. She is currently on the Netflix animated series, Charlie’s Colorforms, the Paw Patrol Movie, Bakugan, Let’s Go Luna, Dog & Pony, Rosie’s Rules and is the voice of Shakila Chinda on the upcoming Netflix series Jason Spellbound and the Sceptre of the Primus.
In 2018, Saara was one of more than 700 applicants who applied to be a CBC Kids News contributor. She was chosen as the Lead Contributor of CBC Kids News based on her interest in world issues and ability to communicate a story on camera. Saara was most recently nominated among her adult peers for a Radio Television and Digital News Association Canada award and won a Global Youth News Media Prize for her continuing coverage of the pandemic through her CBC COVID-19 Explainer series. Saara is also an aspiring writer and producer.
In 2018 she co-wrote an episode of Dino Dana with multiple Emmy-winner, J.J. Johnson, and is currently in development as co-producer and writer with Oscar nominated production company, Aircraft Pictures, on a feature film of an epic adventure of two fearless, trailblazing young women from opposite ends of the world and their improbable and endearing friendship. Outside of film and media, Saara is an award-winning international debater and public speaker. She was the 2020 Ontario Debate and Public Speaking Champion, placed 2nd at the 2021 Canadian National Public Speaking Championships and was crowned the World Champion in Interpretive Reading at the 2021 World Individual Debate and Public Speaking Championships.
She is also a vociferous advocate for gender and racial equality, as well as girls’ education. Saara was appointed a UNICEF Canada Youth Advocate in 2020 and has chaired the UNICEF Youth Activism Summits in 2019, 2020, 2021 and will do so again in 2022. In her role as a UNICEF Youth Advocate, Saara developed a digital series called Voices of One Youth so that young people from around the world could have a space can talk about the issues that matter to them. Saara is also a member of the JFK Jr. Forum Committee at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. Saara is currently in her freshman year at Harvard University.
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