Melanie Kannokada

Biography:

American actress, model, and co-founder of Hospital for Hope Melanie Chandra was born on February 28, 1986. Her most well-known roles are those of Malaya Pineda in the medical drama Code Black on CBS and Mel in the comedy Hot Mess Holiday on Comedy Central. Chandra attended Stanford University and graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering after high school.

After receiving her degree, Chandra started working at McKinsey & Company as a consultant. She eventually left the company to focus on her passion for acting and modeling. “Getting up every morning” was not something she wanted to do, she said, but she found the management job “intellectually fascinating.”
Chandra participated in and won the 2007 Miss India America pageant after graduating from college.

In national and international campaigns for brands like Nescafe, Verizon, Glamour Magazine, P&G, Crocs, Acura, Herbal Essences, LG, and Clinique, Chandra served as a model and commercial actress. She was chosen as one of the five faces of the global “Be A Force of Beauty” campaign by Bare Escentuals in the fall of 2011. She was chosen to appear in a five-page editorial spread for Vogue India Magazine in the fall of 2012.

After arriving in Los Angeles for a week in order to pursue her acting career, Chandra was able to get a guest star spot opposite comedian David Spade on the popular sitcom Rules of Engagement on CBS. She was a guest star on NBC’s Parenthood, CBS’s NCIS: Los Angeles, NBC’s The Nine Lives of Chloe King, and ABC Family’s Code Black. In addition, she costarred with Jack Black and Aasif Mandvi in a significant recurring role on HBO’s The Brink.

In 2019, she and co-creator and writer Amy Aniobi, as well as Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, were revealed to be working on a series called “Attachment” for HBO.Chandra will be starring in Surina and Mel in 2019, a comedy about two South Asian women who were born in America and are attempting to navigate adulthood in New York City. Variety revealed in 2020 that Chandra will be appearing in Chris Blake’s quarantine comedy, Distancing Socially.

Using remote technologies and the iPhone 11, the film was shot in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. October 2021 saw Cinedigm acquire and release the movie. Chandra starred in the comedy Lie Hard in 2022, which tells the story of a pathological liar who borrows $4 million from a criminal organization to buy a mansion to impress his girlfriend’s affluent parents.

Chandra voiced Mira in the January 2023 episode of Meet Cute’s The Lonely Wife. The narrative centers on Mira, who is compelled to examine her marriage after her husband’s childhood friend spends the weekend staying with them.