Sonia Rathee

Some Lesser Known Facts About Sonia Rathee

• Sonia Rathee is an Indian-American actress, model, and dancer. She shot to fame in May 2021 when she made her acting debut with the web series Broken But Beautiful Season 3 in which she played the role of Rumi Desai starring Sidharth Shukla on ALTBalaji.

  

• Sonia was raised by her parents in San Diego, California, USA. ^[5]Dil Mil – YouTube

• Before shifting to India from the United States, Sonia worked with a start-up finance company in New York. In an interview, she talked about her aspiration of becoming an actor since childhood and said,
  

  I always wanted to be an actress, since I was a kid. But then we all grew up and we went to college and we were like ‘oh this is reality, maybe I should be in finance.’ So that’s what I did. I did finance and marketing, and I got a job in New York. I did that for one year, and then I was getting bored at work so I started taking acting classes. I started my own dance company. And then I quit my job one fine day. My mom and dad were like ‘we are not gonna let you go to India until you are able to get a full-time career in New York.’ So I got a full-time career in New York and then I came here.” ^[6]Hindustan Times

• In 2018, Sonia appeared in the short film Night Encounters as Sonia on YouTube.

  

• In an interview, on being asked about her experience of working with Sidharth Shukla, her co-actor from the web series Broken But Beautiful Season 3, Sonia replied,
  

  When I first met him, he was extremely serious. But once I got to know him, I had an incredible time. He is a giving co-star. Before shooting every scene, we would sit down and discuss how we are viewing it. Building that friendship was important to shape the film.” ^[7]Mid Day

• In December 2021, Sonia played the role of Masha in the web series Decoupled on Netflix alongside R. Madhavan and Surveen Chawla.

  

• Sonia Rathee has a self-titled YouTube channel, where she posts dance covers of different Bollywood songs. In July 2020, she appeared in the YouTube video titled “Shaadi Aaj Kal: A Wedding Story” on the channel FilterCopy.

• In 2014, while filming the short film Seeking Mr. Brown, Sonia assisted the production design department. In the same year, she worked as the key hair stylist for the Hindi short film 100: The Tribute. In 2015, Sonia worked as an assistant designer for the short film The Rat.

• Sonia is proficient in English and Spanish languages.

• In an interview, Sonia revealed that to prepare for her role as Tara in the Bollywood film Tara vs Bilal, she took basic training to improvise her Hindi accent and said,
  

  I grew up in the US in a Haryanvi household, so you can imagine how my natural accent might be. My Hindi has a bit of a Haryanvi twist to it, and my English is completely American.” ^[8]The Free Press Journal

• Sonia is often seen consuming wine on various occasions with friends and family members.

  

• In an interview, on being asked about the challenges being faced by her after coming to India to pursue her career in acting, Sonia replied,
  

  I think one of my bigger problems was just adjusting to India. I spent my entire life in California, and then I moved to New York. So just coming here, obviously, I knew Hindi but just understanding the way people worked, how Mumbai worked especially… Like the difference in timing. Like everything is on Whatsapp here, and in America, everything is on email. There are all these small nuances that you are just learning and now it has kind of become my home. So that was kind of my biggest challenge. Industry-wise and working wise I have never been challenged like that.” ^[9]Hindustan Times

• In an interview, Sonia revealed that her body weight was around 90 kg before making an acting debut in India, but she worked diligently to get back in shape. ^[10]The Free Press Journal

• Sonia went through physical training to shoot an action sequence and prepare for her role as a bank robber in the music video Chamkeela Chehra by Badshah.

• In April 2021, Sonia Rathee was featured on the cover of The Door magazine along with her brother, Ankur Rathee.