Taapsee Pannu earned recognition among Hindi cinema fans for her pivotal role in Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's critically acclaimed and successful film Pink (2016). Born on 1 August 1987 in a Jat Sikh family in Delhi, Pannu graduated as a software engineer but became a full-time model after she got selected for Channel [V]'s talent hunt show Get Gorgeous. Thereafter she appeared in a number of print and TV commercials endorsing many brands like Reliance Trends, Coca-Cola, and Motorola. In 2008, she won the Miss Beautiful Skin award at the Femina Miss India contest.

Pannu's acting journey began with K Raghavendra Rao's Telugu romantic musical Jhummadi Nadaam in which she played a US resident who comes to India to research traditional Telugu music. A year later she made a foray into Tamil cinema with Vetrimaran's Aadukalam starring Aishwarya R Dhanush, daughter of superstar Rajinikanth. The film received critical acclaim and won seven National awards, earning Pannu some good reviews. For instance, Sify.com said: Debutant Taapsee is a promising find and she suits the character of an Anglo-Indian girl to the T.

Pannu was nominated for the Vijay award for Favourite Heroine and Vijay award for Best Debut Actress for her performance in Aadukalam. The same year she starred in Hemant Madhukar's Telugu film Vastadu Naa Raju opposite Vishnu Manchu, and entered the Malayalam film industry with Sohan Seenunal's Doubles alongside Mammootty and Nadiya Moidu.

After Dasaradh's Mr Perfect (Telugu, 2011), Krishna Vamsi's Mogudu (Telugu, 2011) and R Kannan's Venthraan Vendraan (Tamil, 2011), her next big project was Ramesh Verma's Veera (Telugu, 2011) opposite Ravi Teja.

Pannu made her debut in Hindi cinema with David Dhawan's comedy Chashme Baddoor (2013) alongside Ali Zafar, Siddharth, Rishi Kapoor and Dibyendu Sharma, a remake of the 1981 Sai Paranjpye classic starring Farooq Shaikh and Deepti Naval. She was nominated for the Filmfare award for Best Supporting Actress and given the Most Enthusiastic Performer – Female award at the 2014 Edison awards for her performance in Vishnu Vardhan's blockbuster Tamil film Arrabam (2013).

In 2015 she had three releases across languages, including Neeraj Pandey's Baby starring Akshay Kumar and Raghava Lawrence's horror comedy Muni 3: Kanchana 2. She is believed to have been cast in Shoojit Sircar's next film Runningshaadi.com and Prakash Raj's Tadka, both due next year.