Lisa Rani Ray (born 4 April 1972) is a Canadian actress. She began her modelling career in India in the early 1990s, appearing for leading Indian brands like Bombay Dyeing and Lakmé. She made her acting debut in 1996 in the Tamil film Nethaji. Her first Bollywood appearance was in 2001, in the offbeat romantic thriller Kasoor. Through her acting career, Ray has demonstrated a penchant for issue-oriented portrayals, most notably in the 2005 Oscar nominated Canadian film Water and the award-winning South African feature The World Unseen, described by a reviewer as "one of the best-conceived queer films of the past year." In 2009, Ray was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable form of blood cancer. She began writing The Yellow Diaries, a blog about her experiences of having cancer. Her writing and columns have since regularly appeared in multiple major publications. Ray remains an active advocate of stem-cell therapy and has participated in several successful fundraisers and cancer awareness campaigns. In 2011, Ray began hosting a popular travel show on Discovery Channel India alongside appearing as host and judge in Food Network's highest rated show, Top Chef Canada. In 2016, Ray opened an Instagram account dedicated to poetry. In March 2019, Ray participated as a panelist on the 2019 edition of Canada Reads where she advocated for David Chariandy's award-winning second novel, Brother. Early life Ray was born in Toronto to a Bengali Hindu father and a Polish Catholic mother and grew up in the suburb of Etobicoke. She spoke Polish with her maternal grandmother and watched movies of Federico Fellini and Satyajit Ray with her cinephile dad. During her childhood she spent some time in Calcutta. She excelled academically, doing five years of high school in four, while attending three different high schools: Etobicoke Collegiate Institute, Richview Collegiate Institute and Silverthorn Collegiate Institute. Modelling, film and television career 1991–2000 Ray's modelling career began when she was "discovered" during a family vacation in India while still in her teens. An advertisement for Bombay Dyeing where she appeared in a black swimsuit opposite Karan Kapoor earned Ray her first taste of public attention. A subsequent meeting with Maureen Wadia, editor of Indian fashion magazine Gladrags, resulted in an iconic swimsuit cover that catapulted Ray to nationwide fame in India. "Most of my most fulfilling professional moments came to me via serendipity", Ray later wrote. By the time the Gladrags