Mandala Tayde

Mandala Tayde was born in 1975 to a German mother and an Indian father in Frankfurt am Main. She grew up there and finished high school, though she spent most of her time with horses and books. She started working as a model when she was thirteen. That enabled her to travel to Hamburg, Milan, and Miami. In 1995 she was cast for the short film 'Hawai 96'. After graduation from high school Mandala absolved an actors training at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London and at the Duse-Studio in Rome. She starred in 'Amore a prima vista', which turned out to be a major box-office success in Italy. In 1997 Mandala moved to Rome and played the lead in 'Fuochi d'artificio', a 40-million-Euro box office success in Italy. The films 'Trestelle', 'Il cuore e la spada', and 'Amore a prima vista' followed, along with Mandala's first TV dramas in Germany, 'Tödliche Wildnis' and 'Liebe pur', and her first Indian feature, 'Dil Chahta Hai'. Mandala took great pleasure playing in an otherwise all-male cast during the successful staging of 'Uomini sull'orlo di una crisi di nervi' (Men on the Brink of Nervous Breakdown) in 2004 at the Teatro dei Satiri in Rome. Mandala's last feature film for German TV was 'Meine verrückte türkische Hochzeit'. This film received the 3sat Audience Award, and was awarded as the year's best TV feature by the German National Academy of Dramatic Arts.