Nagra was born to Sikh parents who emigrated to the UK from the Punjab region of northern India in the late 1960s. She is affectionately known as "Mindi". Her middle name, Kaur, meaning Princess, is traditionally given to Sikh women (Sikh men traditionally have the middle name Singh, which in Punjabi translates to Lion.). Her family background was working class. Her father, Sukha, a factory worker, Read more...

Not long after leaving school, and only a few months after sitting her A-levels, Nagra was approached by Jez Simons, her former drama instructor, about becoming part of Hathi Productions, a leading Leicester-based British Indian theatre company, for which he served as the artistic director. She accepted and was cast as a chorus member in the 1994 musical Nimai presented at the Leicester Haymarket. Read more...

Before she turned twenty, Nagra left Leicester for London, forgoing university to pursue a theatrical career and her childhood dreams of becoming an actress. After selling her prized viola, she found herself living alone in Peckham, south London, employed in a stocktaking job and struggling to find theatrical work.

Nagra's first London theatrical job came in 1994 when she was cast as the Princess Read more...