Sanjna Kapoor (born 1967) is an Indian theatre personality and former Indian film actress of British and Indian descent. She is the daughter of Shashi Kapoor and the late Jennifer Kendal. She ran the Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai from 1993. to February 2012.

Biography

Sanjana Kapoor was born in the Kapoor family. Her paternal grandfather was Prithviraj Kapoor and her paternal uncles are Raj Kapoor and Shammi Kapoor. Her brothers Kunal Kapoor and Karan Kapoor have also acted in some films but like her they were not very successful. Her maternal grandparents, Geoffrey Kendal and Laura Kendal, were actors who toured India and Asia with their theatre group, Shakespeareana, performing Shakespeare and Shaw. The Merchant Ivory film, Shakespeare Wallah, was loosely based on the family, which starred her father and her aunt, actress Felicity Kendal. Sanjna attended the prestigious Bombay International School in Mumbai. She had a love for acting and frequented the Prithvi Theatre in Juhu.

Her career was not successful. She made her acting debut in the 1981 film 36 Chowringhee Lane which was produced by her father and starred her mother Jennifer Kendal in the lead. She played the younger version of the character her mother played. She later appeared in Utsav (1984), also produced by her father and played her first leading role in a Bollywood film titled Hero Hiralal (1988) which was however unsuccessful at the box office.

She then appeared in Mira Nair's critically acclaimed film Salaam Bombay in 1988 but has since quit acting in films, shifting her focus to theatre in the 1990s. In 1991, Sanjna did the role of the Japanese wife in the theatre Production of Akira Kurosawa's immortalised film Rashomon based on the Broadway play by Fay and Michael Kanin. She also acted in A.K. Bir's Aranyaka (1994). She manages the Prithvi Theatre in Juhu, Mumbai and runs theatre workshops for children.

She also hosted the Amul India Show on television for three and a half years.

In 2011, she announced her decision to leave Prithvi Theatre, and launch her own theatre company, Junoon in 2012, which would work with travelling groups staging plays at smaller venues across India.