Today we’d like to introduce you to Leah Khambata.
Hi Leah, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve always wanted to be an actress ever since I was a little girl, more specifically, after watching the movie “Titanic”. It just evoked something in me and I knew right then that I wanted to work in the film industry. Growing up, I acted in several musicals and sang in choirs too. When the time came to choose my major for college though, I felt nervous and a bit under-confident to commit solely to Acting and so decided to cast a wider net and study Film as a whole.
I majored in Film Studies at Wesleyan University which was an absolutely amazing experience that deepened my love for the industry and everything that goes into it. I still continued to act in several theatre productions and short films alongside. (I also ended up doing a double major with Psychology as I was fascinated by how the mind and people work in different ways.) Upon graduation, I worked in film production in NYC exploring different facets of the industry – from Editing to Casting to Production Design – while also doing an Acting course at Stella Adler, and then took the decision to pursue my MBA at Cornell University. I feel like I had convinced myself that I wasn’t good enough to really go down the Acting road so might as well go down a more stable route in life.
However, a couple of months into the MBA, I realized that it wasn’t really me; I had been suppressing my true self for so long and the dissonance was getting too much. But me being someone who doesn’t like to quit anything I’ve started, I decided I would still finish the MBA but also pursue my lifelong dream alongside. I planned my classes such that they were Monday-Thursday and then I would take the bus down to NYC almost every week to act in short films and Off Off Broadway plays to build up my resume and get more experience. I even did a semester in London where I trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and acted as the lead in a play at the Pleasance Theatre there. After graduating from Cornell, I trained in Improv at UCB in NYC and I wrote, produced and acted in a short film called “(t)here” (which later had its NYC Premiere at HBO’s South Asian International Film Festival). I then moved to LA where I continued to act, worked in Film distribution, and also performed my original music at venues such as The Hotel Café. (My original songs are out on Spotify/Apple Music and two of my music videos premiered on VH1India as well.) I now split my time between the US and India (which is where I’m from), wherever the work takes me 🙂 I continue to act in Films, TV/Web series, Ads and release my music too.
Most recently, I was in Season 2 of the Lionsgate Play series, “Feels Like Home,” Amazon Prime’s “Guilty Minds,” in the film “Mithyam: The False Truth” which is in the festival circuit, and won Hungama’s Indian Independent Music Award for Best Lyricist. I also shot Season 2 of a well-known Sony Liv series, which will be out soon, that I’m super excited about!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Definitely not a smooth road! Haha. I feel like for the longest time I had always done what I thought was expected of me or what I thought would be the safer more responsible option, but I didn’t realize how I was letting myself down in the process. I feel like I went through this massive shift in 2018/2019 where I actually got more in tune with myself and what I really wanted. And LA was actually a big part of that. I was going through quite a hard time emotionally and my friend recommended this book – “The Untethered Soul” – which really opened my mind up and made me see things in my life in a different way. And then it was like a sort of switch had been turned on and all these different people in LA came into my life, all with different things to teach me at just the right times. There was a lot of synchronicity and it felt like I was meant to be there in LA going through all those things.
Another big struggle of this journey has been the fact that due to logistical visa reasons, I had to miss 2 of my grandparents’ funerals and 2 cousins’ weddings, all of whom I was/am very close to. It really pained me to be away during those crucial family moments and made me re-evaluate my long-term plans. I wish I could be in two places at once. My short film “(t)here” is literally based on when I had to experience my grandmum’s death from far away in NYC.
I think though that everything happens for a reason. The good, the bad, the ugly – all for a reason. And maybe I wasn’t able to see it then, but I can slowly see it now – how I was exactly where I was supposed to be even during the times when I felt like nothing was going right. It’s all part of a bigger picture, whose ending I still don’t know yet 🙂
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m an Indian actress who acts in multiple languages and accents, is a singer-songwriter who plays the guitar, piano, and ukulele, and who has also worked extensively on the other side of the camera too with majors in Film, Psychology and an MBA to boot haha. I loooooove acting in British accents in fact. I even made an Instagram reel last year where I transition from my natural Indian accent to different British and American ones.
I would describe my music as self-reflective and healing, straight from the heart 🙂 Of course, I like songs that have a catchy melody, but I try to make songs that will also raise people’s vibrations in a way; that will strike a chord within them to be more in tune with themselves and in turn attract higher vibrations around them. For both film and music, I want to create and be in projects that will really remain with you and perhaps change the way you see things around you.
On the acting front, I think I’m most proud of my work in the Lionsgate Play series, “Feels like Home” and the upcoming Sony Liv one, of course for the actual content itself, but also because I get to say to that six years old Leah that we’re finally doing it; we’re making our dream a reality one step at a time. I am also proud of my song “Hey Little Girl” because I wrote that from a very vulnerable place as if I was talking to my inner child, and the other day I was at this event and this girl whom I didn’t know at all, came up to me and told me how that song had helped her through a tough time and that to me in that moment made me feel like I was actually making a difference 🙂
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I’m Reiki 2 certified. Very “LA” of me I know, haha. I’m also a very curious, old but playful soul who sometimes feels I should have perhaps been born in a different era? lol
Contact Info:
- Website: www.Leahkhambata.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leahkhambata/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Leahkhambata/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/LeahKhambata
